The Pilot
by ucsbdad
Summary: A pilot manages to land his damaged fighter on an unknown and badly shot up planet. Can he find a way to repair his ship and return to his home? Well, he'll probably need some help. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

"Rambler Five One to all Rambler units. Report."

He listened, but all he heard was the hissing static of the space between the stars.

"Rambler Five One to any unit. Come in."

"Rambler Five One, this is Rambler Five Three. I saw Igor collide with a Zenetian fighter and blow up. I don't know about Raoul."

"Rambler Five Three, what's your status?"

There was a pause. "Bad. The ship is shot up and so am I. The med sack has deployed, but I hurt like hell."

"Rambler Five One, this is Rambler Five Three Charlie." The sultry female voice of the AI cut through everything as it was supposed to. "Lieutenant (jg) Govind is badly wounded. I wish to instruct the onboard medical care unit to sedate him."

"Govi? Are you okay with that?"

"Sure, Muddy. Whatever you say." The last words were weak and slurred.

"Rambler Five One, this is Rambler Five One Alpha."

"Dammit, Al, you can just talk to me, you know."

"I wish to advise you that there is a debris field five hundred and fifty kilometers from here that is consistent with the remains of a Type 47 fighter craft."

"Any chance it's a Zenetian?" The pilot asked.

"That is not possible."

_Shit_. The pilot thought. _Half my division is gone and I have two damaged ships and one damaged pilot left. _"Al, Charlie, can you give me the status of both ships?"

There was apparently some communications between the two AIs. Al spoke. "It will take a few minutes to evaluate the damage."

The pilot waited impatiently for a reply.

"Your ship has lost two of your four fusion pods, the flux capacitor is damaged, as is the drive unit. I would not recommend using more than 61% of military power."

"How about Rambler Five Three?"

Charlie replied. "Only one fusion pod was destroyed, but the flux capacitor is more badly damaged than yours, as is the drive unit. I recommend no more than 57% of military power be used."

"Shit! It'll take us forever to get back to the task force." He grumbled.

"Hardly forever." Charlie said. "I calculate that we should be back to the task force in under twenty two hours, however they will likely send a patrol to look for us and then have a frigate or destroyer come pick us up and we'll get back much sooner."

'Great. And we'll have to spend the whole time going back listening to the big boys bragging about how they had to save the little boys. Shit." He muttered. "Okay, let's set a course for the task force. Charlie, take over Rambler Five Three and conform to my movements."

The next three hours were boring, which is not always a bad thing for a fighter pilot.

"WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!" Al's voice bellowed. "Twenty-seven unidentified ships approaching from 12 o'clock green 10."

"Are they a patrol, looking for us?" He demanded.

"Negative, sir. They're Zenetians, and they've spotted us. They're headed this way."

"Reverse course and increase power. How much more can we add on?"

There was a slight delay. "Unless you want to leave Rambler Five Three behind…"

"I don't!" He yelled.

"The best we can do is 60% of full military power."

"Okay, do it. Maybe the Zenetians will decide not to chase us."

"That is highly unlikely. I calculate the chances of that as.."

"Al, shut up."

A stern chase is a long one, but the Zenetians were catching up, slowly but surely.

"Al, we need more power."

"That is inadvisable, sir. We could blow up if we try."

"And we'll be shot to bits if we don't. Do something. That's an order."

Power went up by a few percentage points, but the Zenetians kept gaining.

"WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!" Al's voice bellowed again. "Wormhole opening at ten o'clock, red 15, approximately 18,000 kilometers away."

"Change course! Head straight for it. Charlie, conform to my movements."

"Sir, I am required to warn you that it is a serious violation of safety regulations to enter an unknown wormhole. And the one ahead is certainly an unstable wormhole."

"Duly noted. Now get us the hell to the wormhole." The pilot screamed.

Stable wormholes were a boon to spacegoing civilizations. They always connected the same two places and they opened and closed with perfect regularity. A ship, or ships, could enter a wormhole and take days or weeks to complete a journey that would otherwise take months.

Unstable wormholes were another matter. They appeared and disappeared at will and never in the same place. Some remained open for months, but others lasted for only a few minutes. Few people entered unstable wormholes and even fewer ever came back to tell the tale. The crew of one such ship had taken decades to return. But, the pilot had no other options.

When the ships entered the wormhole the ship's instruments went wild. The pilot had no idea what was happening, but he was going straight down the middle of the wormhole. A check behind him showed Rambler Five Three was right behind him.

Suddenly, they were in normal space again. The pilot turned his craft around to face the wormhole, with Rambler Five Three conforming.

"If the Zenetians come through, we'll start shooting. Maybe we can get them."

But the wormhole closed five minutes later with no Zenetians appearing.

"Charlie, how's Govi doing?"

"Lieutenant (jg) Govind is critical, sir."

"Any idea where we are, Al?"

"I've compared the local stars with my star charts. We've only moved 7.485 light years from our last position. This solar system is not on my charts, sir."

"Not surprising. We lost a lot of things in the Collapse. Not hard to misplace an entire solar system if you really try."

"There appear to be fourteen planets in this system. There is a moon of a super-Jovian planet that would be marginally habitable, but the fourth planet seems to be highly compatible with human life."

"We'll head for there, then. Give them a call and see if anyone's home." Having escaped death, the pilot was feeling better already.

Ten minutes later, he wasn't so happy.

"Sir, there appear to be no communications of any sort emanating from the planet. There are two ships in orbit, however…"

Images of the two ships appeared on the visor of his helmet.

"That's just half a ship, Al. The other one is more holes than ship. We'll get no help from them."

"However, sir, they appear to have been old Commonwealth types. I believe we're approaching a former Commonwealth world."

Once over the planet, things looked no better.

"Sir, I do see a city just on the dawn line, by an ocean." Al dropped a targeting pipper on the city to show the pilot where it was.

"Let's look it over." He said and put the ship in a deep dive.

Once over the city, things looked worse again. "The city's been shot to hell." He said, looking at mile after mile of ruins.

"But there's no sign of any thermonuclear weapons and I do pick up a few energy readings. A properly built fusion plant would last for centuries. And there are a few signs of life. There was a herd of some kind of animals around a small lake."

Another minute passed. "Sir, we've been shot at."

The pilot craned his head around. "Where? I don't see anything."

"A small pellet of metal moving at no more than 300 meters per second. Even at point blank range, the weapon could not penetrate the ship. But someone did shoot at us."

They were almost at the end of the city. "There!" He cried, "There's a large building on a peninsula. It's got a flat roof even if part of it is covered with debris from the collapsed building next door. How's Govi doing?"

"Critical, sir." Charlie answered.

"Charlie, I want you to set down as close to me as you can, but facing the other way. That way our guns can cover 360 degrees."

Once down, he grabbed his own ship's med sack and ran to Rambler Five Three. The canopy opened as he arrived. He saw that the readouts on the medical sack were all red. He quickly attached his med sack to the one helping Govi. The readings went up for a bit, but then began to decline. Then they were replaced with the word "Deceased."

"Dammit! He can't be dead. I can't have lost my whole damned division in one day. Isn't there anything we can do?"

"Sir, if we could find an emergency resuscitation facility in the next fourteen minutes and eighteen seconds, we could. But the readings I have don't correspond to such a facility anywhere near here."

"Shit." The pilot sat and began to cry.

"Request permission to deploy both ship's DRDs to evaluate the damage."

He just nodded. As he did, four tubular shaped droids emerged from each ship and began to open inspection hatches.

He had no idea how long he sat there, but eventually Al spoke to him. "Sir, we have sustained further damage to both ships from the strain we put on our drives from trying to escape. We will not be able to get anywhere near 50% of full military power.

That sank in. "Without 50% power, we can't go FTL, right?"

"Correct. We will not go faster than light."

"Shit." He sat there for a while longer.

"Can we do repairs?"

"We can do some, but there's no way that any combination of you and the DRDs can lift a three-quarter ton fusion pod. The entire flux capacitor will have to be removed to repair it and that would require lifting over a ton."

"Shit."

"However, we have plenty of power if we don't go FTL." Al said. "You can go anyplace in this solar system. And perhaps we can find some sort of repair facility that survived the devastation here."

"Yeah, with the trigger-happy locals taking pot shots at us."

He sat until he finally made a decision. "I'm going to bury Govi. Return the med sacks to their appropriate bays." When that was done, he unharnessed Govi and lifted him out of the cockpit.

"Sir, you should remove Lieutenant (jg) Govind's ship suit and space suit."

"He's smaller than I am." He snapped.

"The ship suit will adapt to your body, as you know and, if necessary, if your space suit is damaged, we can make repairs from the other suit."

"All right, dammit." He stripped his friend's body and carried it to the pile of rubble at the far end of the building. There were numerous blocks of a marble-like stone present. He began making an above ground mausoleum for his friend, using his directed energy pistol to melt the stone blocks together, gradually covering the corpse. Then he found a larger block and used his blaster to etch Govi's tombstone. When he was done, he melted it onto the top of the mausoleum. He stood back and read what he had written.

Hari Govind

Lieutenant, Junior Grade

SO 317BR57QC57MO

Imperial Terran Space Navy

H.I.M.S. Warspite

Fighter Wing

10 Month 8 Day 121 YE

2 Month 15 Day 144 YE

He came to attention, saluted and walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

He lifted his seat up and examined the gear stowed there. The first was a survival pack. He knew what was in it, having had to inventory and sign for it quarterly. The same with the second pack, a selection of hand tools both for the repair of the ship and for survival.

"Charlie, what, if anything, did Govi carry other than regulation stuff?"

"Lieutenant (jg) Govind had a Type 56 carbine with twenty spare magazines, a spare directed energy pistol, a box of twenty-four stun grenades and a vibro-sword. He also had four one-quart bottles of whiskey."

The pilot smiled. "Whiskey? Hari, you rascal, you, But, what did you want with a vibro-sword? Did you think you'd have to fight a duel someplace?"

"I believe he wanted intended to use it as a tool, sir." Charlie did not understand a rhetorical question.

While Govi had gone for weaponry, the pilot had packed extra food. The standard survival rations were nutritious, compact and bland. He had packed food that was nutritious, compact, expensive and tasty. He decided to have dinner.

Once he had eaten, he went to the edge of the building and looked below. The building was some twenty stories tall, but he could see holes where windows had been and parts of the walls smashed in.

"Al, it wouldn't be hard for someone nasty to get to me, let's put four DRD's on a roving patrol around the rooftop for security."

Four of the DRDs, tubular droids 200 centimeters tall and 40 across, began patrolling. They were unarmed, but could give warning.

He removed and examined Hari's weapons and stowed them in his fighter.

"Al, I want to take a look around. Route the feed from the DRDs to my visor." He stood at the edge of the roof and watched. There were predators out there. He saw something cat-like tracking and bringing down some kind of deer. He also saw a group of humans. They moved cautiously and covered each other with their weapons. He watched them until they moved out of sight, wondering if they might be friendly.

Hours passed and it grew dark. More predators, animal and human came out. He saw one group of three men shot down by a group of five. He decided the locals might not be friendly.

"Al, I'm going to bed in my ship. I'll lock myself in and you and Charlie keep watch."

"Yes, sir."

He was woken from a sound sleep by the roar of his fighter's weapons. "What the hell was that?"

"Sorry not to have woken you first, sir." Al replied calmly. "We had a sudden visitor." His visor lit up and showed something very big and with lots of teeth.

"What is that thing?"

"It's not in my database, but it appears to be a twenty-meter long centipede with a very big mouth. It showed up suddenly."

"Good shooting, Al. Now I'm going to try to get back to sleep."

He was up at dawn, ate and looked over the ruined city before him.

"Sir, there's an interesting tactical situation below us." Again, Al put the feed from a DRD on his visor. It showed an armed man dragging another by a rope around his neck. The scene changed to a rifleman laying in wait for the two men. Then again, to show five armed men sneaking up on the lone rifleman from behind.

He ran back to his ship and grabbed the carbine. He engaged the holographic sight and input the location of all the parties.

The armed man brought his prisoner to something that might have been an altar.

"Sir, if you look closely, the armed man has three human heads hanging from his belt."

The pilot watched as the armed man spoke to the altar, then in one swift move, decapitated his prisoner. As he did, the lone rifleman shot him dead.

He thought things over quickly. If he could make one friend on this planet, he might be able to find a workshop or something where he could repair his ship. He decided to save the rifleman.

He fired five times and the five men fell.

"Start the engine, Al. We're going to go make friends." He grabbed the things he'd need as he got into the cockpit.

The ship shot upwards and headed for the lone rifleman. As soon as he saw it was headed for him, he started shooting. He was a good shot as each shot hit the ship, but did no damage. The pilot stopped over the lone man and tossed three stun grenades out. The rifleman staggered and fell over.

The pilot landed and ran to the downed man. He sat up bleary eyed and tried to reach his weapon, but failed. He snarled at the pilot. "Spill your seed in me and take my head. I've taken fifty-seven of you out. I am Bent Leg."

The pilot injected his new friend with a sedative. Then he looked at his prisoner carefully. One, he had a rifle_woman_, and, two, her leg _was_ bent. Her face, under a layer of dirt and grime, was gorgeous. Her hair was brown, cut short and looked like it had been hacked off when necessary with a knife. She was tall and rather stocky.

He got her into the cockpit but wasn't able to close the canopy. Accordingly, he flew very carefully back to his temporary base. Once there, he got out a med sack and deployed it.

"What's wrong with her leg, Al?"

"She has a badly set tibia from an old break. This has caused a limp that has strained her knee and her hip. These can be repaired, but it will take approximately six hours and eleven minutes. She'll be sedated the whole time and for about a half an hour afterwards."

"Any idea of the local time?"

"I estimate the local day to be twenty-five hours long and that it's about one hour before local noon."

"Then get to work."

"I already have, sir."

The pilot thought of something. "Has she got any other weapons, Al?"

"A crudely sawed-off weapon of some sort under her jacket, a slug throwing pistol at her waist and a directed energy pistol in her backpack. The energy pack for the pistol is totally depleted. She also has a knife, but that might be classified as a tool."

He disarmed her and began examining her weapons. Her rifle was a military type, he was sure.

"Al, is this an AV/19 connector?" He held up a small part.

"That is correct."

"Do we have many? And will we need them to repair the ship."

"We have 280 and they will not be needed."

"Have a DRD bring me one, please."

A DRD exited the ship and brought the part, then hovered nearby. He inserted the new part. "There we go. The holographic sight works." He continued to examine the rifle. "Do these transfer points look worn, Al?"

"Very much so, sir."

"Can we fix them?"

He was sure Al would have rolled his eyes if he'd had any. "There is a bar of high test steel in the wreckage of the building next to us. The DRD can fabricate them." The DRD shot off and came back with the metal and began working on it. In minutes the weapon was in perfect working order. The pilot spent the rest of the afternoon examining the woman's weapons and other gear, repairing anything needed.

"Her repairs are completed, sir.' Al said. "I'll advise you when she's conscious."

After a half an hour, Al advised the pilot that the woman was awake, although pretending not to be.

"I know you're awake. No sense in trying to fool me."

The woman shot to her feet and faced him. Then her eyes widened with shock. "What happened to my leg?"

"I repaired it for you. Well, Al and I did."

"Al?" The woman looked around, suspiciously.

"I'm Al."

She whirled and faced the ship. "You have a woman in there?"

"No, Al is an artificial intelligence, a thinking machine. Al is short for Alpha. The other one is Charlie."

"Hello." Charlie said.

The woman ran to his ship and then the other. "There are no women in there. Just machines?"

"Correct. What's your name?"

"They call me Bent Leg."

"Not any more. Your left leg is now perfect. And your knee and hip."

The woman stood on her left leg, then ran, jumped up and down, squatted and finally faced the pilot. "My name is Kate Beckett."

"My name is Rick Castle, but folks call me Muddy."

She frowned. "I'll call you Rick. Why would anyone call you Muddy?"

"Long story."

"Why did you save me?" She demanded.

"I need your help."

She laughed. "You have two flying machines, weapons good enough to kill half of the Stoner's Gang and you want my help? What for, the sex thing?"

"Both of the ships are damaged, too badly damaged for me to repair myself, or even with your help. But there may be machines on this planet that I can use to fix my ship. But, I need a local guide to help me out."

"Where's the other person who had the other flying thing?"

"Dead. Over there." He pointed to the pile of stones.

"What do I get out of this?"

"I fixed your leg, Kate. And I repaired your weapons. Look at them."

She picked up her rifle. "It looks the same."

"Turn on the holographic sight."

"The what?"

"The button by the trigger."

She pushed the button and the sight lit up.

"I can teach you how to use it later, if you stay. If you don't want to stay, you can leave now with two good legs and better weapons."

"I'll stay." The choice was easy for her.

"Okay, but if the locals are as unfriendly as they seem, you should put on a ship suit and a space suit. Not as good as combat armor, but it should stop anything from your rifle or something similar."

The woman began to take her clothes off.

"Um, would you like some privacy?" He asked.

"No, I want to keep my eye on you."

He had thought the woman was stocky, but as he took off layer after layer of clothing, he found she was quite slender, too slender, in fact, although muscular. She was also dirty all over.

"What are you staring at?" She demanded.

"Do you ever wash? You know, soap and water?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'd have to take off my clothing. What would happen if I was attacked? I might have to run off naked. If it was cold, I'd die."

He was still staring.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just that most Imperial women remove all of the hair below the neck. It's a fashion thing. Doesn't mean anything."

"My hair grows naturally under my arms, between my legs and on my legs."

"Like I said. It means nothing. Now let's get a ship suit on you. It'll keep you warmer in winter than all those clothes and cool in the hottest summer. And it'll do other things that I can explain later."

The woman pulled the ship suit on and in seconds it conformed to her body, fitting like a second skin. He had to help her with the space suit and make some adjustments to it, but in the end it fit fine.

To be continued.


	3. Chapter 3

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

"Let me show you something. Al, put the feed from the DRDs on her visor."

He saw her jump back in surprise. Then she looked around. "What are these DRDs?"

"Diagnostic and Repair Droids." He suddenly remembered how thin she was. "I think it's time for dinner. Hungry?"

She nodded. "I have some meat in my backpack. I can contribute."

He had seen the meat. It looked old. "My treat. I'll get two ration packs out." He pulled out two packs and pulled the tab to heat them. In a minute they were hot. He handed her one and a bottled water.

She looked suspiciously at the meal in the tray and then at the bottle. He twisted the bottle cap off and handed her a knife, fork and spoon from the pack. She took a bite and her face lit up. "This is delicious." And she began shoveling food into her mouth. She scraped every bit off of the tray. "Can I have another?"

He nodded. "Sure, but we have to be careful. I only have so much of this kind of food. The rest is pretty tasteless."

She nodded and wolfed down the second ration.

"Where are you from?" She asked. "I've never seen a flying machine."

"I'm from another planet. A planet in the Terran Empire."

"What's that?"

He thought about how to explain that to her. "Maybe I should start by giving you a history lesson. Your planet was once part of the Human Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was huge, a sphere a thousand light years across and numbering a hundred thousand inhabited worlds."

"Grandpa talked about the Commonwealth." She said. "He said when he was a little boy there was no shooting and all you wanted to eat. I thought he was just making up stories to keep me amused."

"That was the Commonwealth, peaceful and prosperous. But, more than two hundred years ago, it started falling apart. We call it the Collapse."

"Why did it collapse? How can you not like no shooting and plenty of food?"

Castle shrugged. "Some say that the Commonwealth was too large. That problems grew and became disasters because the central government couldn't handle a society that large. Some say it was a self- perpetuating elite that lost touch with the rest of humanity. There's a school of thought that it was economic, that…There about as many theories as there are people studying the Collapse. Anyway, the Collapse continued until all that left was about eight thousand worlds close to Terra, the home of humankind. The former Commonwealth worlds underwent political, economic and military collapse. Chaos reigned. Even then some people in the Commonwealth government wanted to get rid of some less advanced worlds to better protect the remaining worlds. They ordered a Frontier Fleet commander named Michael Phillips to abandon an entire sector, some one hundred planets as not being worth defending. Phillips protested, saying that would condemn tens of millions of citizens to death and destruction. When ordered to do it anyway, he refused."

"Good for him." Kate said. "But what happened to him."

"Police were sent to arrest him, but his fleet rebelled and supported him. They named him Protector of the Commonwealth. Other Frontier Fleets were ordered to attack his fleet, but they mutinied, too."

"So, there was a war?"

"No. The other Frontier Fleets either joined him or decided they were neutral. All that was left to the Commonwealth was the Home Fleet, the central reserve. But, the Home Fleet also decided to be neutral as well. The House of Worlds refused to accept Phillips as the Protector and a stalemate ensued. The House had no military and Phillips didn't want to fight a war on Terra."

"What did he do?" Kate was very curious.

"He slipped a group of special forces into the capitol and arrested the entire House and disbanded it. He put his own loyal officers in charge of all of the government departments. Eventually, one hundred and forty-four years ago, he was declared the Emperor of the Terran Empire with the mission of reestablishing humanity under the Empire."

"So, the Emperor runs everything now?"

Rick shook his head. "Emperor Michael, now called Michael the Great, knew that sooner or later his sons, or grandsons, would turn out to be incapable leaders, so he reformed the House to become the House of Planets and reduced the Imperial Family to figureheads. The House elects the government from among its members. I don't know that the government can actually govern the twenty-five thousand worlds now in the Empire, so maybe the military and civil bureaucracies run the Empire. Or maybe it runs on its own inertia. Anyway, it does run."

"How did you end up serving the Empire?"

"I was born on a planet called Christmas, which was a former Commonwealth world. We were lucky and had survived the Collapse pretty well. But, one day a man on our world decided he wanted to run the whole world. There was a war. My mother told me to take my rifle and join the militia in the hills. I never saw my mother again. I was fourteen at the time. Two years later an Imperial task force arrived to reintegrate us. The 8th Ingoldsby Infantry Division did the reintegrating. Like all units in combat, it was chronically short of infantry, so my militia was assigned to the division. I served another year."

"You lost your mother?" Kate said, feeling sorry for him.

"I did. But, when the fighting died down, I was given a test and they found that except for my lack of formal education, I had the potential to be an aerospace fighter pilot. So, I was sent off to a cram school to bring my education up to where it needed to be, then two years of officer's school and a year of pilot training. That's where I got the nickname Muddy, because unlike most of my peers, I'd been a muddy boots infantryman. I've been a pilot for five years now."

"So, the Empire must be going to reintegrate this planet soon since they're so near." Kate hoped so.

Rick shook his head. "The task force is fighting the Zenetian Combine. They're nothing but a bunch of raiders and pirates, but there are a lot of them and they fight to the death. They shot up my ship and killed the other three men in my division. But, if I can repair my ship and get back to the task force, they'll certainly be very interested in a world in this good a shape."

"This good a shape? How can you say that?"

"You've never seen a planet that's been bombarded with nuclear weapons. This planet is still livable."

Kate wondered what nuclear weapons were.

"Did you understand all of that?" He asked.

"Of course. I'm not stupid and I know my letters and numbers and a lot of things."

"Okay, tell me about yourself."

She shrugged. "I've spent most of my life just trying to stay alive. When I was little it was my mom and dad, my grandpa and Mikhail. Mikhail was related somehow to Mom's family. All I could do was look for berries and other fruits and vegetables, but every bit helped. But, one winter it got really cold and one day Grandpa didn't wake up. When I was fourteen Mikhail and I started doing the sex thing. Dad didn't like it. He said we couldn't bring a child into the world the way it was. Mikhail left. I don't know if he left on his own or whether Dad told him to go. Two years later Mom was killed by Head Choppers, but Dad killed them before they chopped off her head."

"Whoa! Who are the Head Choppers?"

"They're a crazy religion. They believe that their god caused all of this…" Kate spread her arms to encompass all of the devastation around them, "because they didn't worship their god properly. They believe if they can kill all the non-believers and present their heads to their god, things will be better."

"You killed one of them just before I shot those five men." He said.

"I killed fifty-seven of them." She said proudly. "That's when Dad and I started hunting the Head Choppers. Two years later he was killed by a crawlie."

"What's that?"

"Big thing with lots of legs and lots of teeth."

"Like that?" He said, pointing to the dead thing at the end of the rooftop.

Kate looked and jumped for her rifle before seeing that it was dead. "You killed one?"

"Al killed it. I was asleep at the time."

"Damn." She whispered.

"So how do you live?"

"I scavenge. Lots of things in this old city are worth something to someone. There's a bunch of people who live on an island offshore. They have big boats so they can fish and they grow crops and raise animals for food. They come here every two months to trade. They have a real big metal man, I guess kind of like Al, but it looks like a big man and his arm is a gun that'll burn you. There's no killing when they trade. I get food and ammo, and maybe some clothes."

"How do you know where to scavenge?"

"I find out things in the house of the talking pictures. It's a really big building a few kilometers from here. You have to get past a metal man on the first floor, but that's easy. When you get to the third floor there are things like windows, but when you stand in front of it a man appears and tells you things. That's how I learned my letters and numbers and lots of things. And where good stuff is to scavenge."

"You mean a library." Castle said happily.

"I guess."

"Could you find it from the air?"

Kate shrugged. "I've never tried. I suppose I could."

Castle thought for a second. "We should go at night. I don't want the Head Choppers or anyone else figuring out we're here."

"Tonight?" Kate asked.

"I need to show you how to work the sights on your rifle and show you what I've done to your other weapons first." He looked at the sky. "We'll wait until it's dark."

Kate smiled. "The Head Choppers like to work at night. Can I kill some?"

"Sounds like a plan."

When it was full dark and before the moons rose, Rick gave Kate a brief explanation of how the holographic sight worked. "See the Head Choppers over there?"

Kate grimaced. "Three of the bastards. They have a man, two women and three children to sacrifice. They'll do the sex thing with the women before they kill them. But, they're too far away for me to hit."

"Not at all. Just put the crosshairs on your target and push the sight button again." She did, and a red dot appeared on the scope. "Now move the rifle until the red dot is in the middle of the crosshairs and you're ready to shoot."

"They're too far away. I won't even scare them at this range."

"Your rifle will shoot a lot farther and harder now that I've fixed it." Rick turned on the sight of his carbine in case Kate missed.

Kate didn't miss. The three Head Choppers fell before they really had any idea what was happening.

"Their victims are just standing there. Why don't they move?" Castle asked.

"They think they're next. Give them a minute or two."

Sure enough, the man moved to a large, rough rock and began to cut through his bonds. When he was done, he released the others and they gathered up the Head Chopper's weapons and other gear.

To be continued.


	4. Chapter 4

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

"Damn." Kate said. "I killed those bastards. I should have their weapons and stuff."

"At least they're dead and those people will be able to kill more Head Choppers."

Kate snorted. "If they were any good, they wouldn't have gotten caught to begin with. Who knows? I may have to just kill them later."

Rick hoped the Empire would come here soon so that Kate and the rest of the planet could live in peace.

"We should go to bed."

"You want to do the sex thing now?" She asked.

"I mean we should get some sleep."

"Where?"

"Inside the ships. The AIs will keep watch for us. We'll be safe."

Kate walked over and looked at the other ship. "Sleep in this?"

"We can move the seat almost horizontal. On a long patrol you can get forty winks and let your other pilots and the AIs look after you."

Kate wasn't sure, but she allowed Castle to put her in Rambler Five Three and close the canopy.

The next day, Castle got as much information on the library as he could from Kate. The biggest problem was that Kate had, naturally, always entered by the ground floor entrance, but Castle intended to land on the roof. From Kate's description the library was guarded by standard Commonwealth era security robot that he could outshoot if he had to. But he didn't want to.

When it was dark and before the moons were up, they set off. Castle pushed his seat as far forward as he could manage and cleared out the area behind his seat. There was just enough room for Kate, but she'd have to ride the whole way bent over so far that she could only see the floor of the ship.

"Don't worry about it." Castle had said. "I'll run the feed from Al to your visor. It'll be just like sitting next to me."

"No, it won't." She said, but had no better idea.

Kate had identified the library from video that the AIs had taken on the flight in and Castle had plotted a route that would take them quickly and, he hoped, safely to the library.

Halfway there, Al screamed, "Break right. Break right."

Castle dove the ship to the right just as several bright somethings zipped just over the ship. Castle came to a hover just behind the remains of a substantial building. "What the hell was that?"

"We were shot at." Al replied.

"No shit." Castle replied.

"I am being perfectly accurate." Al sniffed.

"Any idea who or what was shooting at us?"

"I don't know who, but the weapon appeared to be a midsized electromagnetic railgun. The projectiles were about 50 millimeters in diameter and were travelling at some 750 meters per second."

Castle thought about that. "Not enough to shoot us down unless they hit us several times in just the right places."

"Correct. I suggest we find an alternate route to the library."

Castle shook his head. "I want to take the shortest route to the library. We can go around this gun, but Rambler Five Three can barely maneuver. It might not make it to the library and we should consider making the library our main base. Deploy a DRD and have it take a peek at the gun position."

A DRD popped out of the ship and hovered for a moment before carefully moving to the edge of the building they were sheltering behind.

"There it is." Castle said. "It looks like it's sited on some kind of flange on the green building across the way."

"I would say that it's on an access flange for an aircar." Al replied. "That way it can shoot in a 180 arc."

"Okay, I'll knock it out."

"Do I get a vote in this?" Kate screamed.

"No." Castle said.

He dropped the ship to near ground level and then sped to the building where the gun was mounted. When he was right under the flange, he stood the ship on its tail and shot upwards, firing as he went. Chunks of steel reinforced concrete fell around them, with Castle maneuvering to avoid them. In seconds the flange collapsed, sending the gun and part of its crew falling fifty stories. His ship shot up to where the flange had been and Castle used his directed energy weapons to hose the inside of the building.

"From the green paint all over, I'd say those were Greenies. Bad people to run into." Kate said.

"Not any more."

The rest of the ride to the library was peaceful.

They stopped and hovered about a kilometer away from the library so Castle could study it.

"There are no obvious defenses on the roof and no weapons mounted in the broken out windows. Al, what do you see?"

"I see no evidence of heavy weapons or other defenses, but according to Kate Beckett, there are armed robots of some kind inside. I also detect a power source in the basement, running at about thirty five percent capacity. Whether that's all the capacity it now has or it's being run at low capacity because there's no need for more power, I cannot say."

"Any computers operating?" Castle asked, a plan starting to form.

"Yes, I do detect a computer network."

"Can you hack it and control it?"

Al almost sounded insulted. "It's an old Commonwealth commercial grade computer. Of course, I can hack it."

Castle explained his plan to Al and Kate. "We'll land on the roof. I can see a doorway there. Al, deploy three DRDs as security and I'll take one with me. When we find a computer, I'll let you and the DRD do your stuff. Kate, you're with me. Everyone clear?"

Everyone was and Castle guided his ship to a spot right beside the doorway. He, Kate and one DRD headed for the library.

"The door is open." He said happily. "This should be easy."

They went down the stairs and into the library proper. Castle smiled. There were row after row of computers. Then he frowned. They seemed to be inoperative. They began moving through the top floor examining the computers. Suddenly the DRD moved to one of them.

"The DRD has found an operating computer." Al said.

Kate hit Rick on the arm. "Something's coming." She whispered.

Castle used his visor to search the room. As he did, Al spoke. "Sir, that's not a security droid, it's a military grade combat droid, and someone has modified the program to control the droid. This may take a bit longer than I expected."

"How long?"

"I don't know."

A voice boomed out. "Intruder! Show yourself and identify yourself. Be warned that I am programed to use deadly force."

Now Castle could see the droid. It was huge, well-armed and heavily armored. And it was headed their way.

"Al, I don't think I can take this thing."

"I agree, sir."

"Well, do something."

A ball of incandescent energy zoomed over their heads.

"Kate, we're retreating." They both ran, trying to keep something large and thick between them and the droid and not always succeeding. But, they managed to avoid getting hit. Then the firing stopped.

"Sir, I'm inside the computer and I've stopped the war droid. Give me a minute and I'll have the whole system under out control."

Castle spent an uncomfortable minute watching the war droid standing, perfectly immobile only a few meters away.

"All done, sir. We're in charge of the whole library."

"Get me to the computer's avatar, then. I need to make some changes."

"The nearest computer interface for an avatar is at the end of the row you're now in."

Castle walked down the row with Kate following behind. He arrived at what appeared to be a large pane of glass. As soon as they stood in front of it, the image of a man appeared. "Miss Beckett. How nice to see you again. And you brought a friend with you."

Castle spoke. "I have news. The Commonwealth has been succeeded by the Terran Empire. I represent the Empire locally. I wish to advise you that the Emperor has appointed Miss Beckett as the librarian of this facility. As soon as more Imperial forces arrive, she'll see about repairing this facility and improving it."

The avatar appeared overjoyed. "We're to finally have a librarian? And it's Miss Beckett? I am so happy."

"Can you direct us to the librarian's office?" Castle asked.

"The right front corner office. I'd have a library droid show you the way, but we have none that are functional."

"We'll find it." And they did.

'The last librarian is still here." Kate said.

Indeed, there was a pile of human bones on a chair behind a large desk. A sign identified the desk as that of the chief librarian. Castle pushed the chair away and moved another one behind the desk. He sat Kate behind the desk and began going through the records of the library while looking over her shoulder.

"What are you looking for?" She asked.

"We need to see how many security droids there are and if any need repairs. Oh, here we are."

Castle read a long list that meant nothing to Kate.

"There's one war droid on the first floor that controls the entrance, but it's damaged. That explains why you could get past it. There's another war droid on this floor that we just met, and two in the basement needing repairs. There are three security droids that are more or less functional on other floors and seven that are inoperative." He thought for a moment. "Al, can we repair the droids?"

"Certainly, sir. But I suggest we repair the library's own repair droids first, then have them do the repairs on the security and war droids. If the inventories are correct, they have enough spare parts in storage here."

"Okay, send the one droid that's here with us and start fixing things up. "Library, can we communicate with you from this computer?"

The avatar appeared on the screen. "Certainly, sir. How may I help?"

"Is there someplace where we can wash up here?"

"Of course. The librarian's bathroom is through the door to your right. All of the fixtures are intact."

Rick wondered why the repair droids were out of action, but the bathroom was functional, but he supposed they were lucky anything worked.

The bathroom was quite large, and he was surprised, in surprisingly good shape. "The last librarian must have been a neat freak."

"A what?" Kate asked.

"He liked to be clean."

"What's this?" She asked.

"That's a toilet. You use it to urinate and defecate."

"I don't know how to do those things."

Rick sighed. "You sit on the toilet like it was a chair and you pee and poop into it. Then you flush it and the water takes the pee and poop away."

Kate looked at it. "There aren't any leaves."

"Leaves."

She looked at him like he was a little dense. "You use leaves to wipe your butt."

"You use paper." He saw a roll and pulled several sheets out. "Like this. It's a bit stiff, but usable. Do you need to use it?"

"No. What are those?" She pointed to four showers along one wall.

"Showers. You use them to get clean. And we both need those."

Kate walked over and examined a shower. "How does it work?"

He examined the controls. "You turn on the water, like this and wait for it to get hot." The water got hot very quickly. He stuck his hand in. "Just about the right temperature."

Kate stuck her hand in. "It's hot."

"Hot showers are good for you. Let me help you out of the space suit, then you can get in this shower. I'll take the one at the end."

"You mean we shower with no clothes on? Suppose someone attacks us?"

"Al, is the war droid protecting us on this floor? And is the one on the first floor okay? Have the DRDs seen anything dangerous?"

"Yes, yes and no." The AI replied. "Why do you ask?"

"We're about to shower. It's perfectly safe, right?"

"Of course."

To be continued.


	5. Chapter 5

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

Rick helped Kate out of her space suit and then removed his own as she pulled off her ship suit. He turned on another shower for himself. Then he tried the other controls in Kate's shower. "Perfect. You push this lever for soap, that'll help clean your face and body. This one is for shampoo. You use that to clean your hair. The last one is a depilatory. That's used to remove excess hair. Be sure not to get any on the hair on your head unless you want to be bald."

Kate looked down at her body. It was dirty compared to Rick's, but he had more hair than she did below the neck. "Why do you have all that hair below your neck?"

"Like I said, it's just a fashion. For some reason fashion seems to be more important among Imperial women. Don't worry about it."

"Do you like Imperial women?" She asked, then added. "Any particular Imperial woman in particular?"

Rick laughed. "Yes, I like Imperial women, but no, no one in particular. Now take your shower, we have a lot of work to do."

Rick had been happily scrubbing away for some minutes. He certainly wasn't as dirty as Kate, but sitting in a cramped spaceship for days on end and sweating when in combat meant he needed a shower. Then he was joined by Kate.

"I can't reach my back to clean it." She said, turning away from him.

"Glad to help." He couldn't help but notice that she had a great ass. He soaped his hands and began washing her back. He also noticed the hair under her arms was gone, and there was no hair on the back of her legs.

"I think my ass needs to be cleaned." She said softly.

"Happy to oblige." Rick was surprised when he began to scrub her ass. He had known women who kept themselves in shape, and even a few who were athletes, but he'd never met a woman with an ass as muscular as Kate's. It was firmer and smoother than any ass he'd ever fondled. He could get to like this.

Kate moaned softly and leaned against the wall of the shower stall.

"How are your boobs?"

"Oh, god. They are _so_ dirty." She moaned.

He turned her around and began to run his soapy hands over her boobs. They were firm and perky, and her nipples stood proud on her chest, seemingly begging to be played with. How could he refuse? He pinched her nipples between his fingers and then rolled them as well. He leaned forward and kissed her, his tongue pushing against her teeth.

She pulled back. "What are you doing?"

"It's called kissing."

"My mom and my dad kissed me, but not like that. Mikhail never did anything like that."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No, of course not."

He continued to kiss her and soon her own tongue met his, tentatively at first, but soon she got the hang of it and responded passionately.

Castle began kissing down her neck and then to her boobs, sucking on them and playing with her nipples with his teeth and tongue. She moaned all through the kissing.

He dropped to his knees in front of her. She had, indeed, removed all of her hair below the neck. He spread her legs and began by nibbling on her clit.

"No one has ever kissed me there, or like that." She moaned, her legs beginning to shake.

Castle decided he'd better make love to her before both of them lost control. He stood up. "Put your arms around my neck."

She did, wondering what he had in mind.

He lifted her up and in one swift move, impaled her, entering all the way into her. She got the idea very quickly and began using her strong arms to bounce up and down on him. She let out a wail and he felt her climax. He knew he was close as well.

"I can't hold it, Kate."

He pulled out of her and spurted onto her flat stomach.

"Why did you do that?" She asked.

"Your dad was right. We can't risk having a baby now."

Kate grinned. He didn't want to have a baby with her _now_. "Can we do that some more?" She asked, leaning against him.

"Sure, but we have to get busy and fix things here."

She stuck out her tongue at him. "Meanie." She said, but with a smile.

Before he could reply, a small, pink droid shot out from the wall, inspected the toilet and then began to clean up the two showers.

"Al, I thought you said that all of the library's repair droids were out of action. What about that one."

"That, "Al replied, "is a bathroom cleansing and repair droid."

"There's a difference?"

"Apparently after the last librarian died, the people who remained here had little technical knowledge. The BCRD is the simplest droid to keep in operation. They were unable to repair the rest."

"What happened to them?"

"I don't know for sure, the records they kept just ended. But, there is a large, empty stasis unit for storing food downstairs. They may have left to search for food and never returned."

"How long ago." Kate asked.

"Seven years, two months, four days and nine hours since their last entry into the computer database. I assume they left soon after that."

"I missed them by two months. It's been about seven years since I first found this place."

"How old are you, exactly?" He asked.

She shrugged. "About twenty-five, I suppose. How old are you?"

"Twenty-six, almost twenty-seven. When's your birthday?"

"My what?"

"What day were you born on?"

"I don't know. Is it important?"

"I guess not. Not here anyway."

"Is it important in the Empire?"

"Sure. On the anniversary of the day you were born, people have parties and give you gifts."

"What's a party?" Kate thought the Empire was sounding more and more confusing.

"You have your friends over and you eat a lot of good food and have some drinks and sometimes you play games."

"Games?"

"When we get back to the Empire, I'm going to give you twenty-five birthday parties, one after the other."

"You're taking me back to the Empire with you?" Kate had hoped he would, but this was the first time he'd indicated he would. Then she saw the expression on his face.

"I don't think I'll be able to."

"I don't mind being cramped in the back of your fighter, and I really don't eat much…"

"That's not it, Kate."

She was starting to panic. "If it's because I'm not good at sex, I can learn. Just tell me what to do and…"

Rick put his arms around her and kissed her. By the time he was done, she was too breathless to speak. "Kate, I'm not sure I can get myself back to the Empire. I have to cannibalize two fighters to get one that'll get back there. And if I get a working ship, the problem is not food, it's oxygen. There's no air in space and I have enough to get back to the Empire by myself, I hope."

Kate was heartbroken. She almost wished he wouldn't be able to get back.

"But, I'm not going to leave you here forever." He continued. "I've saved most of my pay, so I have a lot of money. If the Empire won't send me back here, I can take leave and hire a ship, a big enough ship to take us both back to the Empire. Okay?"

"You'd better, or I'll never forgive you." Then she kissed him back.

"I can't have Kate Beckett never forgiving me, can I? Now, we should dry off and put on our clothes. We have work to do."

When they talked to Al again, they were surprised at what had been done already.

"The war droid in the first floor is done. The joint in his right leg had frozen up. It was a matter of minutes to fix it with the help of our DRD and a few of the library droids. The reason Miss Beckett was able to get in so easily was because the power port that charged his batteries was damaged and he could get only thirty percent of his power needs at one time and had to keep going back to be recharged. Again, repair was a matter of minutes. In addition, I discovered that the former occupants have blocked all of the possible entrances to library except the front door. I'm supervising the repair of more of the library's droids and as they're fixed, I have them working. I anticipate one more war droid will be operational in one hour and four minutes."

"Excellent work, as always, Al. Have you located any information in the library that would help us find someplace we can repair my ship?"

"I have located the main spaceport for this planet, but it's located some eight thousand kilometers from here and much of the flight is over water. If you had any problems in flight…."

"They don't bear thinking about." Rick finished. He thought for a moment. "You concentrate on getting our defenses set up and Kate and I will go through the library's records to see if we can find something nearby that will serve as a repair point."

They went back to the librarian's office and sat down at the computer. After several hours work, he found a small spaceport in the city itself. "This one looks promising. Al, do we know anything about this one?"

"I took videos of the city on our way down form orbit. We passed over that area. I'll put the video up."

Rick groaned when he saw the video. "Nothing but overlapping bomb craters. We won't find a damned thing in that ruin." He checked his watch. "We've missed breakfast and are close to missing lunch. Would you care to dine with me, Miss Beckett?"

"Would this be one of those parties where we eat good food, drink and play games?"

"We'll eat good food and while we have alcohol, courtesy of Govind, we shouldn't drink until our defenses are all set. There is one game I'd like to play with you, much like the one in the shower."

"Can we just skip the meal then?" Kate asked with a very big smile.

"We need to eat to keep our strength up. Come with me."

After lunch and another round of lovemaking, they went back to looking for someplace they might be able to repair his ship.

"Lieutenant Castle?" Al called to him.

"Yes, Al?"

"There are people moving towards us. Lots of people."

"How many lots of people?"

"Several hundred, I believe. They seem to be like those people Miss Beckett shot. Many of them have human heads hanging from their belts."

"We're headed for the first floor. How many combat droids are ready?"

"One more war droid for a total of three and two more security droids for a total of five."

Castle thought for a moment. "Deploy two war droids to the main entrance of the library with four security droids. Keep one security droid and the war droid in the top floor in reserve. Are they just coming from the front?"

"It appears there are small numbers on our flanks and to our rear. I suspect they're there in case we try to flee."

"Send a DRD with all of the weapons and ammo from my ship."

To be continued


	6. Chapter 6

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

By this time the two had reached the first floor of the library. Castle looked over the entrance to the library. There were two staircases on each side of the entryway, leading to the second floor. A long walkway connected the two staircases. "What's on the first floor, Al?"

"Nothing really, it's all been thoroughly trashed."

"Can they get anyplace from the first floor?"

"No, I took the elevators to the top floor and they'll stay there. The stairways to the upper floors are thoroughly blocked."

Castle looked over the droids preparing for battle. The war droids were three meters tall and weighed a ton. Their two arms ended in heavy blasters that, at full power, could shoot through a suit of battle armor and incinerate the man inside.

"Have the war droids set their power settings to one third. That's enough to kill an unarmored man."

He looked over the security droids. They were more man sized, but weighed twice Castle's weight. One arm had a sonic stunner mounted, but the other had a blaster. Their blaster was not as powerful as a war droid's since they were not intended for combat. "Set the security droids blasters to seventy five percent power."

A DRD arrived with their other weapons. He handed Kate two blasters. The one she'd had and the spare one of Govi's. "I've recharged your blaster and I have an extra for you. If this gets to be close range combat, two blasters will be easier to manage than your long rifle. I've set the blasters to half power and a beam of three millimeters. You have an extra power pack for each one too. Your other weapons are…?"

"A heavy slug throwing pistol with one hundred and seventy-six rounds in eleven magazines. I also have a sawed-off shotgun with fifty four rounds of buckshot, but I have to reload one round at a time, and I have my knife." She pulled the weapon out. The blade was half a meter long and double edged.

"We'll go up to the second floor and set up in the middle of the walkway. You cover one stairway and I'll cover the other. Okay?"

She smiled at him. "Okay, and I get to kill a lot of Head Choppers today." Her smile faded. "No matter how many I kill, my mom will never come back."

"Lieutenant Castle! They're starting to charge!" Al yelled.

In seconds the Head Choppers were inside. Castle had heard of, but had never seen a human wave assault, but that's what they were facing. Hundreds, at least, of Head Choppers were storming through the doors practically shoulder to shoulder. The droids opened fire cutting the enemy down in swathes. But somehow a small number managed to break through.

A dozen Choppers overwhelmed a security droid and knocked it to the ground. They fired at it from point blank range, but did little apparent damage. Rick and Kate shot them off of the droid which got to his feet and continued to fire.

Castle saw movement to his right. "Kate! Down!" He screamed. She ducked and Castle shot a gigantic, muscular woman, totally naked, who ran at them. He shot her in the center of her forehead. A fine mist of blood and brain matter exploded from her head as she collapsed. "How in the hell did she get here?" Then he saw it. A grappling hook and a rope. He fired at the rope and it fell back to the floor.

In the seconds that had taken, a half a dozen Choppers had reached the stairs and were running up them, screaming and firing their weapons. He saw Kate stagger once from a hit, but it didn't penetrate her space suit. He noticed he had several dents in his suit. He had been hit and hadn't noticed it.

They both resumed firing into the melee below.

"Lieutenant Castle!" Al called. "There are more of the Head Choppers arriving. I estimate there are several thousand."

In spite of the firepower that he, Kate and the droids had, more and more Head Choppers were getting inside. In fact, they were often able to crawl past the piles of bodies of their slain comrades to get to the stairs.

"Al, I want you to engage the Head Choppers that are headed towards us. But stay close to the roof of the library. I doubt if they have any weapons that can damage you, but if anything at all happens, I need you to be able to get back to the roof. Got it?"

"Of course."

Before thirty seconds had passed, Rick saw bright flashes of light that showed that his ship's weapons were in action. Weapons that were capable of destroying an aerospace fighter would incinerate human beings even at the lowest power settings.

Rick and Kate continued to fire at the enemy who were slowly working their way up the stairs, protected by piles of corpses. The first Head Chopper got to the top of the stairs and rushed at Kate, only to be shot down, but they kept on coming.

"Sir," Al said, "most of the enemy are dead and the few that survived are running away. Do you have further orders?"

"No. Just stay on the roof in case we need you."

"Yes, sir."

Castle noticed that there were fewer people coming into the library now. Two of the security droids had clambered up on top of the mound of corpses that had sheltered the Choppers and were firing down into what was left of them.

On the balcony above them, Rick and Kate were finishing off the last of the Choppers who'd make it that far.

The shooting stopped. The library was quiet except for the groans of the few wounded who had not been killed. But, there was one more unwounded Head Chopper. She emerged from the stairway closest to Kate. She stared straight ahead of her and raised a home made weapon and fired it at Kate. Rick could actually see the bullet in flight, it was moving so slow. The slug bounced off Kate's space suit. The girl struggled to reload her weapon.

"Stop, dammit." Kate yelled. "I don't want to have to kill you."

The girl fired again, this time missing Kate and Rick. She stared at the two of them and pulled a large handmade bomb from behind her. She advanced on them, her dead looking eyes seeming to not see anything. Rick stepped around Kate and shot the girl in the knee. She grabbed onto the balcony railing and continued towards them. Rick shot her in the head. She toppled over and dropped the bomb. Castle saw smoke coming from the bomb and threw Kate down, covering her with his body. He waited and waited, then looked around at the bomb. It had apparently failed to explode.

"Al, get a war droid up here and haul this bomb outside. "As he spoke, he helped Kate to her feet. "Are you all right?"

He could hear her crying through his earphones. "Why did she keep coming? She was just a kid. Just a kid. She didn't have to die."

Rick held Kate while she cried.

"Castle, you'd damn well bring the Empire back here. She was a child! We can't have people like her dying for nothing."

"I will. I will." He promised.

Kate relaxed and stepped back. "We need to get back to work."

They looked over the bloody mess below them. "Jesus. How many Head Choppers are there? Are there more out there?"

Kate shook her head. "I have no idea. I didn't know there were that many."

They walked down the stairs past piles of heaped up bodies. The first floor of the library was covered with them. They walked to the doorway and looked out.

"It isn't so bad outside because my ships guns mostly reduced the Choppers to ashes." He inhaled. "You should be able to smell burned flesh all over the city and beyond. Al, we need to get the bodies out of the library. We'll probably need to incinerate them. And we need to get all of the droids up and running. War droids and security droids first. Then whatever's left."

Neither one of them had any desire to watch the droids dispose of the bodies. Rick and Kate went to the library's basement where the various droids were being repaired. Rick could do some of the simpler work on the droids and Kate could help. By dinnertime, they had droids all over the library repairing the place and all of the war droids and security droids were operational.

"We need to check all the floors of the library." Rick said. "We need to see how badly damaged the place is."

The answer was that it was very badly damaged, each and every floor. Computers were smashed as were light fixtures, tables, chairs, rugs, and everywhere were data reels, data cubes, tapes, and even books. All damaged.

At the first working computer terminal they came to, they contacted the main computer to find out what had happened.

"When things began to fall apart, people just went mad, sir." The computer said. "They just wanted to destroy everything related to the Commonwealth. I imagine they blamed the Commonwealth for what had happened. One of the last functional military units handed over the war droids and the security droids to the librarian. The poor librarian had fled from the library, but then came back."

Rick shook his head. "And on that cheerful note, we should eat dinner."

Rick and Kate ate some more of the good food he had. He gave Kate a bit of the survival rations he had. She agreed they were tasteless. He broke out one of the bottles of whisky that Govi had had. It turned out that Kate had never had alcohol before, although she had heard of it from her parents and grandpa.

"It doesn't taste good." She said, making a face.

"It's really for the effect you get from drinking it. Since you've never had alcohol before, you can have this one small glass and then one more.

"I'm not sure I want more."

But Kate did drink because Rick wanted her too. In fact, she got a little buzzed and very affectionate.

"Let's make love." Kate said, finding she liked Rick's term better than referring to it as the sex thing.

"I have a surprise for you." Rick said.

"A surprise?"

"One of the library droids found out that the couch in the librarian's office pulls out into a bed. The droid found clean sheets, pillows and everything."

"But I don't want to go to sleep. I want to make love."

"We will. In a bed."

He took Kate's hand and led her to the bed.

"Rick? When I was with Mikhail, he wanted me to take him in my mouth, but I never did. Is that something I should do for you? Do you like it?"

"I don't want you to do anything you're uncomfortable with. Why didn't you want to?"

"He was very dirty. We all were."

"Did you enjoy it when I kissed your pussy?'

Kate giggled. "I loved it." She started kissing him and moved down his chest and past his stomach until she could take him into her mouth. "Tell me if I'm not doing it right, okay?"

From the way Rick was moaning, she was sure she was doing it right. When he climaxed in her mouth, nor knowing what else to do, she swallowed. "I guess you enjoyed it." She teased.

"Woman, that was fantastic. You're amazing."

"Amazing enough for you to return the favor?"

Hours later, they cuddled in bed.

"Rick, what are Imperial ladies like?"

He thought. "The Empire has trillions of subjects, not all of whom are human, so there are an awful lot of human Imperial women. Why?"

"I'm curious. If you had to describe an Imperial lady, what would you say?"

He thought some more. "Soft, delicate, even. Well dressed, well made up and very fashion conscious. Well educated, well read, and knowledgeable of all the Court and local gossip. Physically attractive. Some even have surgery to make themselves more attractive. And they are very good at attracting a man, although some prefer women. Enough?"

"How can I become more like an Imperial lady?"

"Do you have some reason for making yourself less attractive to me?"

"What do you mean? Less attractive?"

"The women I'm attracted to are like the women I fought with in the militia back on Christmas. Or the women in my fighter wing on Warspite. Fierce, brave, caring, daring, and honest. In other words, women exactly like you."

To be continued.


	7. Chapter 7

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

Kate blushed. "So how can I be more like those women?"

"Just stay the way you are, always."

The next day Castle resumed his search for a place where he could get the tools and spare parts he needed to repair his ship.

"I think I've found one." He cried. Kate rushed to his side.

"Here. Thirty klicks away. It was a private spaceport for the very wealthy, located near the wealthier parts of the city so the very rich didn't have to go that far to get to their spaceships."

"When do we go?"

"No time like the present. We have all of the war droids and security droids up and running and the deaths of all the Head Choppers has probably terrified anyone who might come here, so why not now. Besides I have another surprise I can't wait to show you."

"What is it?"

"Now if I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?"

He led her to his ship.

"Al, open the canopy, please."

The canopy opened and Kate looked at Rick. "You've taught Al how to open the canopy?"

Rick rolled his eyes. Not as well as Kate did, but close. "I had Al and the DRDs remove the bulkhead behind the cockpit and take out the long-range communications array. I won't need it as long as I'm on the planet. That created enough space for you to sit in comfort behind me. I even had safety belts installed."

She kissed him. "Thank you. That's very thoughtful."

They climbed into the cockpit and the black, egg-shaped ship rose slowly in the air and headed for the spaceport. Rick kept the speed under the speed of sound so as not to cause a sonic boom, that would attract attention and kept the altitude at 500 meters to keep the ship out of small arms range.

"Break right and dive!" Al screamed. Rick did just that.

"What is it?"

"We were being painted by a fire control radar. It's an old Commonwealth radar, but I recognized it. I think there may have been more than one."

"Where?"

"Dead ahead of us. Right where we're headed for." Al replied.

"What's going on?" Kate yelled.

"A fire control radar locked on to us. If it's connected to a weapon's system, we could be in trouble. Al, can we pop a spoofer out?"

"Yes. Do you want me to do so now?"

"No. Let me get behind the ruins of a nice, substantial building first."

"What's a spoofer?" Kate demanded to know.

"An electronic device that mimics an aerospace ship in trouble. An enemy thinks he's got a disabled prey, but in reality, I'm sneaking up on him." By this time Rick was behind the remains of a large building. "Okay, Al, let a spoofer go."

A spoofer detached itself from the ship and shot upwards.

"Okay, he's broadcasting and he's….Jesus! What the fuck was that?" Rick yelled as three bolts of directed energy vaporized the spoofer just over their heads.

"A large directed energy weapon, or rather three. From my readings I'd say it was about the equivalent to a main battery weapon on a frigate or a secondary weapon on a cruiser."

"No kidding." Rick said.

"No. Why would I kid you?" Al did not understand sarcasm, either.

"Okay, we'll work around to the left and see if there are any more weapons out there."

The ship moved, a spoofer was deployed and the spoofer was destroyed. The ship moved again with the same result. And again. And Again. And again.

"Okay, the damned spaceport is surrounded by weapons. I saw a building behind us a way back that I think we can hide in and observe the place."

Rick backed off and found the building again. It was now some twenty stories tall, but from the rubble piled around it, it had been much taller once. He got to the back of it and began rising slowly, examining each floor.

"Here we go. A couple of floors have collapsed here, so we can sneak into the building and set down. Then we can look at the spaceport from far enough away not to get them all upset."

"You hope." Kate added.

"We'd better both hope."

Rick settled his ship down between two collapsed pillars that gave him a good view of the spaceport. He told Al to use visuals only and settled down to examine the spaceport.

"Shit! I don't believe it."

"What?" Kate asked, looking at the display shown on her visor.

"There. They have a damned droid mowing the lawn."

Kate decided that Rick was watching a droid walking back and forth over some green vegetation. "Is that bad?" She asked, not sure if she was seeing what he was seeing.

"It means they have enough power to have a damned gardening droid mow the lawns. It looks like they trim the shrubs and trees as well."

"So they have a lot of power?" Kate said, uncertainly.

"Enough so that we'll be old and gray before they ever run out of power for their sensors and weapons. Well, maybe we can sneak in on foot and disable their weapons."

Kate wasn't at all sure that sneaking in was a good idea, but she said nothing.

They sat there for hours, until it was well after dark. Rick turned on the night vision function, making the view through their visors as bright as day.

"Something's coming." Rick said, excitedly.

"It's a nightcat. A very dangerous predator that hunts at night."

The nightcat turned out to be not that dangerous a predator, at least where an automated defense was concerned. A bright bolt of light turned it into seared meat.

"I think sneaking in on foot is a no go." Rick said.

"Why would the leave the place so heavily guarded?" Kate asked.

"Maybe they just decided to be pricks about the whole thing." Rick snapped. Then he thought some more. "I don't know all that much about the kind of space yachts the super wealthy have. But, I think they come in two types. There are large, slow, short ranged pleasure barges, suitable to take a big party over to the next solar system. You wouldn't want to try to escape to safety when things were going to hell in one of those. He other type is a fast, long ranged yacht, but with a limited number of passengers. That's the kind I'd pick. Maybe they were afraid they'd have a problem and have to return here for repairs, or maybe they still had people here they intended to come back for, but never did, for whatever reason. Whatever happened, we aren't going in there. Time to go home."

"Do you think there may be people still in there?" Kate asked.

"They'd have to be sitting on a mountain of food to last this long. I doubt anyone is in there but droids. And, if there is someone in there sitting on a mountain of food and with plenty of power, I somehow they would be the kind to help out wandering strangers."

They went back to the library and continued with their search. It took several days, but Rick finally found something.

"Here we go. This isn't technically a spaceport, it's a shipyard. They only had permission to fly their completed ships to the nearest spaceports. It sounds perfect. It should have all the tools I need and probably some spare parts I can use."

"How far away is it?" Kate asked.

"Eleven klicks. Just a hop, skip and a jump."

"I suggest we take your ship instead of hopping, skipping and jumping there."

"Do you have something against hopping, skipping and jumping?"

"it's getting late, so I want to hop in bed, skip everything else and jump on you."

"I couldn't have said it better myself." Rick said with a smile.

The next morning, they headed for the shipyard. Rick, mindful of their last attempt, was very careful approaching the yard. He circled the yard from a distance and sent a spoofer up several times with no shots fired. Finally, he decided it was safe to approach the yard.

"Shit. Everything looks trashed."

"There's the big building in the middle of the yard." Kate said.

"That's probably the assembly building, but it's closed up tight."

Rick took his ship in close to the doors of the assembly building. "Al, can you hack into the computer and get the doors opened."

"One moment."

More than one moment passed. Finally, Rick spoke to Al. "Is there a problem? Don't tell me you can't hack an elderly Commonwealth security program."

"That's not the problem." Al actually sounded a bit testy. "It seems the doors are not connected to the computer. They simply have a manual lock. The only way to unlock the door is to go inside and open it from there."

"Unfortunately, we're on the outside, not the inside."

"Can't we shoot the lock open?" Kate asked.

"We can, but then we won't be able to lock it behind us. Given the people and critters on this planet, I'd like a nice locked door when we're working here."

"What then?"

"We'll try the roof." Rick said as he flew the ship upwards. "I'll just bet there is a nice door on top."

"Look!" Kate cried. "The roof is covered in trees."

That proved not to be the case as the "trees" began to run for the door that was, indeed, on the flat roof.

When they landed, two of the trees stood by the door, apparently waiting for them.

"Do you know who they are?" Rick asked.

"No, but they don't seem to be armed."

"Okay, let's go talk to them."

They got out and approached the trees. Up close, they looked more humanoid than they looked like trees. They were still green, however.

One stepped forward. "Please, take us. Don't take our children and grandchildren."

Rick was confused. "Why would we want to take any of you?"

"To eat, of course."

"I know there isn't any law on this planet, but where I come from, killing and eating people is highly illegal."

"You're not from this planet?"

Rick shook his head. "I crash landed her a while ago. I'm trying to repair my ship to be able to go faster than light so I can get home."

"You're from the Commonwealth! The Commonwealth has finally returned. We are loyal citizens of the Commonwealth, sir."

Rick quickly explained what had happened in the last century and a half or so. The "trees", who turned out to be plant based intelligent life, said they would be quite happy to be loyal citizens of the Empire.

"What were you doing up on the roof, just all standing there?" He asked.

"We need sunlight to live, sir. That and nutrients from the soil."

"What's your name?"

"Garwal, Sir. And yours, if I may ask?"

"Rick Castle, Lieutenant, Imperial Terran Space Navy and this is the Imperial Librarian for this world, Miss Kate Beckett."

"Glad to meet you, Garwal." Kate said.

"Can you open the door to the assembly building?"

"The door to this place? Or course, sir."

The lock turned out to be quite simple and the engine that was used to open the massive doors was in good shape. Rick and Kate flew back to ground level and when the doors opened, flew right in. The doors closed behind them.

"Do you have a power source in here?" Rick asked.

"Just for some auxiliary systems such as the door opener. We do have a fusion power plant, but its inoperable."

"Al, deploy the DRDs. We'll see if we can get the fusion plant up and running."

It took several hours, but Rick eventually got the fusion plant running. He'd hardly had time to look around when someone began banging on the side of the building.

"What the hell is that?" He demanded.

To be continued.


	8. Chapter 8

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

"Humans. They have a large tree trunk they use as a battering ram. They hope to batter a hole through the wall so they can catch and eat us."

Rick knew how solid the walls were. "No chance of that."

"Not as long as we stay in here, but we have to go out every once in a while to get fresh dirt. We need soil as much as sunlight. They've gotten a number of us over the years."

"That's easily fixed."

Rick and Kate grabbed their weapons and took a newly powered elevator to the roof. They peeked over the parapet at the edge of the roof and looked down. Someone saw them.

"We're gonna get you one way or another. Quit fucking with us and we'll let you live long enough to breed some more food for us." Someone shouted up to them.

"I count seventeen." Kate said.

"My count, too. You take the right side and I'll take the left?"

"Agreed."

Half of the would-be cannibals were dead before they realized what was happening. The rest didn't live much longer. Rick and Kate got back to work.

The first thing Rick saw caused him to smile. "A grav raft. No, two of them. Big suckers, too." He went over to examine them. Kate followed.

"What is this?" She asked.

"A grav raft. It's just a platform with sides on it and an anti-grav drive on it. The control station is in the front. This raft is about seven meters by four. Plenty large enough for what we'll need." He went to the control station and the controls on. There was a slight hum and the control panel lights came on. "Almost out of power, but we can use the fusion plant to power it back up."

He went to the second raft, which was the same size as the first. "Same thing. Short of power, but functional. I'll give it a good look before we take it anywhere."

"How will we get it back?" Kate asked.

"We can hook one onto the other. I'll drive them both and Al can take you back."

Kate wasn't sure she liked that idea. "I can't fly your ship. Suppose something goes wrong?"

"That's a chance we'll have to take. And don't worry about Al. Don't let him hear this, but AIs, at least at his level, are good at following orders, but not so good at deciding what to do."

"I heard that." Al said.

"I know you did. But, Kate, if anything goes wrong, you can just tell Al to pick me up, or if that won't help, you can tell him to take you back to the library."

"I will not leave you behind." Kate said. "No matter what. We're together."

Rick decided not to argue with her. "Okay. We're together."

He got the grav raft to the fusion plant and powered it up and then the second raft. Then he began looking around the building and finding the tools he'd need. He found something else as well.

"A grav bike. How cool is that?"

Kate looked at it. Compared to the rafts, it didn't seem like much. "It looks kind of spindly to me. Are you sure it's safe to ride?"

"Sure. It's supposed to be lightweight. That means it's faster. I wouldn't take it out of the library just yet, but we can ride it inside."

Kate was sure she'd never ride the thing indoors. Too dangerous.

Rick found something that excited him. "Al! Over here! In these cases. Fusion pods. Eight of them. Can we hook them up to the two ships? They look pretty small."

Two DRDs looked over the fusion pods. Finally, Al spoke. "They're smaller than ours, but they can be used in place of the pods we have, but they can't be hooked up in tandem to give us more power."

"But I could take the pods from Charlie to put in my ship and replace the missing pods with these. Would Charlie be able to go FTL?"

There was more of the DRDs examining the pods, then Al spoke. "I'm afraid not. We could get the second ship up to about 41%, assuming you could fix both ship's flux capacitor and drives. That's not enough for faster than light."

Rick nodded while busily planning. "Okay, I think I have enough spare parts here to fix both ships. That'll get me back to the Empire and leave Kate with a powerful enough ship to fight off anything that comes a-calling until I get back."

Kate didn't like the idea of Rick leaving, no matter what kind of ship he left her with. But she said nothing.

Rick rigged a block and tackle to the bottom of the first grav raft and used it to lift the heavy fusion pods into the second grav raft. He checked the control panel on the second grav raft. "Okay. I can't get all of them in one lift plus the tools and spare parts I need. We'll have to make two trips. Kate, get in the ship and I'll give Al his orders.

Kate carefully got into the pilot's seat and strapped in.

"Al, your primary mission is to get Kate back to the library alive and uninjured. Got that?"

"Of course." The AI replied.

"No!" Kate shouted. "I need to get you back to the library alive and uninjured. Tell Al that."

Rick shook his head. "Al, you have your orders. Remember, Kate is just a passenger. She has no command authority. You must obey my commands."

"Shouldn't we wait until it's dark?" Kate asked.

Rick shook his head. "The only navigational aid I have is the Mark1 eyeball. If I get disoriented and lose track of the ship, I could wander around forever looking for the library. But, since you mention it…Al, as long as it doesn't interfere with your primary mission, feel free to help me out if I get into trouble."

"Understood, sir."

"Castle!" Kate glared at him, and then grabbed him and kissed him. "Don't you dare not make it to the library."

"I wouldn't dare." He said, smiling. "Now let's go."

The doors were opened and the fighter and the two grav rafts left the yard and headed back to the library.

"Al, do we have to be so high?" Kate asked, worried about Rick.

"It keeps him out of the range of most ground-based fire and if something does go wrong, he has time to try to fix it before he hits the ground."

Rick hitting the ground was not something Kate wanted to think about. "Are you sure we can't help him even if it puts me in a little bit of danger?"

"I have my orders, Miss Beckett."

Kate sighed and spent the time it took to get back to the library carefully watching Rick.

When she landed, Kate jumped out of the fighter and ran to Rick who was just landing.

"Are you okay?"

"No, I was shot down and killed." He said with a straight face.

"You'll pay for that remark in bed tonight." She said, before kissing him.

While Rick unloaded the grav raft, Kate went to talk to the main computer for the library. She came back to the roof of the library with some library droids, metal poles and some tarps.

"What's all that for?" Rick asked.

"I'm having the droids build a shelter over your ship. That way the weather won't interfere with our work and no one on any taller buildings around us can see what's here."

"You're just taking care of the ship, then?"

She stuck her tongue out at him. "It's for you."

Later that night, in bed, Rick found out what Kate's idea of punishment was for his little joke earlier. If this was punishment, he was all for it.

The next morning, they headed back to the shipyard. This time Garwal and his people didn't run away, but opened the doors for them. Once inside, Rick began the process of moving the rest of the equipment and tools he needed to the grav rafts. Kate decided to look around to see if there was anything useful around. She found a door to the basement and in the basement, she found something useful.

"Rick, I found two security droids in the basement."

"We have all the security droids we need. If we took them back, we'd need to make a third trip."

"Not for us. For Garwal and his people. If we can get them working, they can go outside and be protected from people who want to eat them."

Rick thought. "Garwal, would you have any problems with having security droids protecting you?"

"None at all, sir."

"Okay, let me finish loading the rafts and we'll go look."

Once in the basement, Rick discovered a problem. "They have no power at all and there's no power outlet down here to recharge them. And they're too heavy to carry up to the next floor."

"Rick, they've been such a help, can't we do something?"

Rick smiled. "Yes, we can. The grav bike." He ran back up the stairs with Kate right behind him. The grav bike was already strapped to one grav raft, but Rick quickly got it off and picked up some more strapping material. Then they went back downstairs, followed by a curious Garwal and several of his people.

Rick strapped on security droid to the grav bike and powered it up. The droid didn't rise. Then Rick grabbed the bike and the droid and lifted. "Kind of heavy, but I think I can get it up the stairs."

"I'll help." Kate said.

In minutes they had the droid at the recharging station being powered up.

"Al, can you hack into his programming so he doesn't see us as trespassers?"

"Already done."

Rick thought that Al was beginning to sound a bit self satisfied.

"And then reprogram him to…."

"Protect Garwal and his people." Al finished.

"Do you want to go back downstairs and haul the other one up?" Kate asked.

"No need. Once this one is done, he can walk downstairs and we can use him to recharge the other one enough to get him back upstairs, then we can fully charge both."

Once the droids were fully charged and reprogrammed, Rick and Kate left. As usual, Kate watched Rick the whole way back and kept up a running dialog with Al as to whether he was too high, too low, going too fast or going to slow. Al pretty much ignored her.

"Hey, the hangar is all set up." Rick said as Al neatly flew the ship into the hangar, followed by Rick. He shut down the grav raft to find Kate waiting for him.

She threw her arms around him. "I hate it when you fly that thing. Anyone with a rifle can shoot at you."

Rick held her close. "Al has orders to shoot at anyone who looks like they're dangerous, okay?"

"I still worry."

"I know you do, and I worry about you just as much as you worry about me. But, we have to unload the gear and get ready to work on the ship tomorrow. How about you getting dinner ready. I think tonight we can have another glass or two of Govi's whisky. Do you think that'll put you in the mood?"

"You have no idea." Kate made sure her ass wiggled nicely as she walked off.

To be continued.


	9. Chapter 9

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

There wasn't much to making dinner. All she had to do was take out Castle's ration packs and be ready to pull the heating tab when he got back. However, Kate had found from the library computer that people in the Commonwealth didn't just sit down and eat as fast as they could as she always had. They sat at a table, used plates and glasses and silverware. She had even found a tablecloth to put over the table. She had just finished setting the table when she heard Castle scream. She grabbed her weapons and ran off.

"Castle! Where are you? What's wrong?"

"Nothing!' He yelled back. "I'm having a great time. Come down to the entrance."

Kate ran as fast as she could to the elevator and got to the entrance. Castle was driving the grav bike around the entranceway, which was the largest open space in the library. He did outside loops, inside loops, chandelles, Cuban eights, hammerhead stalls and falling leaves. He even flew the bike backwards, all the time whooping with joy. Finally, he drove the bike to Kate and stopped. She threw her arms around him again. He saw that she was crying.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"What's wrong? You could have hurt yourself, even killed yourself. Do you have any idea what my life would be like if I lost you?"

"About like mine if I lost you?"

She nodded and kept crying.

"Kate, I'm a very good pilot. A very, very good pilot. I wasn't in any real danger."

"I was terrified for you." She said between tears.

"Okay, no more aerobatics with the grav bike. Now, sit on the crossbar and put your arms around me. We'll go back upstairs."

She put her arms around him and he drove slowly to the elevator, and from there to the top floor.

They ate dinner in silence and then got ready for bed. Kate came out of the bathroom completely naked, which was not that unusual. Rick reached out for her, but he pushed his hands away.

"Tonight, I'm going to do all of the work, just so you'll remember what's waiting for you on this planet when you're far, far away."

"I won't have any trouble remembering you."

"I'll just make sure." She pulled the covers off of him and grasped his erection. "It seems you're ready for me."

"Always."

She threw her leg over him and lowered herself onto him, taking him slowly all the way inside of her. Then she began to move from side to side and up and down, then she changed to back and forth as well as up and down, and finally she moved her hips in a circle while moving up and down. He reached for her boobs.

"No." She teased. "I do all the work, remember?"

"But I love playing with your boobs. It's not anything at all like work."

"Oh, okay." She leaned forward and he grasped her boobs softly, stroking them and very lightly pinching her stiff nipples. Both began moaning.

"Kate, I'm gonna…"

"Yeah, me too."

They climaxed at nearly the same time. Kate carefully moved her body so that she lay on top of him without allowing him to slip out of her. When he was fully flaccid, she slid down his body and took him into her mouth. She had never tasted herself before, and found that she liked the taste of herself on him. As he began to harden, she began using her lips and tongue more forcefully. He began to moan again and ran his hands through her hair. It took longer for him to climax this time and she made sure that he'd remember every second of that night.

She crawled up beside him. "Do you think you'll remember that?"

"I don't think I'll ever forget it."

The next morning Rick began to work on his ship. Kate's help was basically limited to helping him find tools and parts.

After three days, Rick wiped his hands on a rag and smiled. "Okay, we're done. Or as done as we're going to get with what we have. Get your suit on, Kate, and we'll take her out for a spin."

"A spin? I don't want to do one of those."

"In this case, a spin means a little trip around the neighborhood."

Kate got her space suit on and took her place behind Rick in his ship.

Rick began starting each system up very carefully. "How are the fusion pods, Al?"

"The two that are left are at 48%, not enough for FTL."

"I expected that. I'm going to try the flux capacitor next." He touched something on the control panel. There was a subtle whine.

"The flux capacitor reads as completely nominal." Al said.

"Okay, now the drive unit." There was a rumbling from the rear of the ship.

"The drive unit is at 97% efficiency. It appears the trouble is in the seventh transfer relay."

"Okay, let's see how she works."

The ship shot up to about ten thousand meters and Castle began to fly back and forth over the city. Then he sped up. Kate could only see the ground when he banked and that was just a blur. Then the ship shot upwards and the blue sky turned black.

Rick turned the ship 180 degrees. "Take a look at your planet, Kate."

Kate could see the entire planet. "We're in space?" She squeaked.

"You're the first person to leave your planet's atmosphere in decades, I'll bet."

Castle took a turn around the planet's moons and then headed for home.

Once on the ground he hugged Kate. "We're halfway there. Next, we'll go back to Rambler Three, change out two of its good pods for my two damaged ones. Then we can see about fixing up Rambler Three for you."

Kate hated the thought of Castle leaving the safety of the library, but knew he had to go. But he didn't have to fix a ship for her.

"I don't need a ship. I'm perfectly safe in the library. Just fix your ship so you can go and bring the Empire back here."

He shook his head. "Not a chance. Who knows what may happen? Suppose the Zenetians show up before the Empire? Or any number of pirates, raiders, slavers and god knows what kind of people? When the Empire moves into a territory, those kinds tend to flee, and they might flee here. I want to make sure you can get as far away from anyone like that as you can."

She glared at him, but it did no good.

Once again, Kate rode in Rambler One with Al having strict instructions that his primary mission was Kate's safety and only if that wouldn't be compromised should the AI worry about Castle. Castle piloted one grav raft and towed another, with both filled with tools and spare parts.

"Al, "Castle asked over the radio, "how has Charlie been doing here all by himself?"

"I've kept in communication with him, Lieutenant, as you ordered. He hasn't reported anything that he was unable to handle so I didn't bother reporting anything to you."

Kate breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the building that Rick had first landed on come into sight. That relief didn't last long.

"Incoming." Castle yelled. "About nine o'clock low."

"I see them." Al said as he hosed the area with blast cannon fire. "There are more ahead of us, sir. They're starting to fire. You might want to fly directly above me."

As Castle changed position, Al hosed the area in front of them. Kate and Rick noticed there was also fire coming from Charlie.

By the time they landed, the ground fire had stopped. Castle looked around. "Shit. Al, this is what Charlie said was something he could handle? There are body parts all over the place."

"Charlie reported that none of them came too near him, or Mister Govind's grave."

"Okay, but have some of the DRDs get rid of the body parts. They stink."

"We hadn't noticed." Al said.

"Al, I think you're developing a sense of humor."

"There's no reason to insult me, Lieutenant." Al sniffed. "And Charlie says the body parts about do keep the interlopers away."

"And body parts around the base of the building will do just as well. Get the DRDs working on it."

"Why did these people come here?" Kate asked.

"People have seen the other ship flying about and eventually saw me." Charlie replied. "Something like me would make a very powerful weapon here. I told the people who approached me that I was authorized to use deadly force to protect myself, but most of them didn't listen."

"Okay, let's get to work."

Castle opened the inspection ports on Rambler Three and began closely examining the fusion pods, the flux capacitor and the drive unit. When he was done, he knew exactly what he had to do and how to do it.

"Good news, Kate. I can fix both ships." He caught the sudden look of panic on her face. "Which means I can leave and come back to you and bring some peace and prosperity to this whole planet. Okay?"

She walked over and hugged him. "Okay, but don't expect me to feel good about watching you leave me."

Castle got to work and by the end of the second day had replaced his damaged fusion pods with ones from Rambler Three. He took his ship up for a test flight with Kate. He flew around the solar system and made three short faster than light jumps before returning.

"Lieutenant Castle?" Charlie said as they exited his ship. "The library avatar wants to talk to you."

"Okay. Patch him through to my visor and to Kate's."

"Sir, we've had two people attempt to access the library. The security droids took them into custody."

"What did they want?"

"Food, shelter, medical care. They need just about everything."

The scene changed to show two females. Both were raggedly dressed and looked emaciated. Castle noticed sores on both of them. One was obviously a child and the other was older, possibly the mother. The mother, if that's who she was, had a gaping hole where her left eye had been. Both looked terrified and were crying.

"How long have they been at the library?"

"Seventeen minutes and eight seconds, sir."

"Okay, have a security droid take them to the top floor, feed them, bathe them…" he thought for a moment. "Do we have any medication for their sores?"

"No, sir."

"Okay, I'll have Al fly over one of the med sacks. Once that's done, have a security droid keep an eye on them. I doubt they're violent Head Choppers or something, but they could get hurt or do damage to the library if we don't watch them."

He turned to Kate. "I was going to have us stay here tonight, but we should go back to the library and see who those two are."

Kate agreed.

They landed on the roof of the library and Castle called the library computer. "Where are the two women?"

"In the librarian's office sir. Per your orders, they have been fed, bathed and the med sacks, as you call them, have treated their wounds. It will take some time before their wounds heal, but I am assured that they will be fine."

"Have they said anything? Who they are? Where they're from? Anything?"

"No, sir. Not a word. If I may, and I may be presuming on my limited knowledge of human emotions…"

"Just tell me what you want to say." Rick cut him off.

"I believe they're afraid of us, sir."

"I suppose they're afraid of everything."

When Castle and Beckett walked into the librarian's office, the two females got face own on the floor.

Tp be continued.


	10. Chapter 10

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

"Okay, that's not necessary. You can sit on the couch."

The woman looked up. "We might get your nice furnishings dirty, great lord."

"I'm a Lieutenant and that's a long way from a great lord. Please sit. If it gets dirty, we can have the droids clean it. My name is Rick Castle and this is Kate Beckett."

The two sat. Castle noticed that the girl, who looked younger than he had thought, was a blonde. The other was brunette. "Suppose you start by telling me about yourselves."

"Us, sir?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"I'm Marie, sir. This is my daughter, Simone."

"How did you come to be at the library? This building."

"We walked, sir."

He nodded and decided that they were very afraid of him and Beckett. "Perhaps you could tell me about your prior life. What caused you to come here?"

The mother gulped and looked around her, as if looking for help. Then she spoke. "I was with Sam'l's gang. You've no doubt heard of him?"

"No, I never have."

"Sam'l paid the wiseman so's I'd have a good, strong boy. A warrior. The wiseman said the right words over me, but I had Simone here. Sam'l was terrible angry, 'cause the wiseman said I'd done something to mess up his words. Sam'l beat me. Then he paid the wiseman to make Sally pregnant with a big, strong boy. But she had a girl, too. The wiseman said it were all Sally's fault. So, Sam'l paid the wiseman a lot to make Debby pregnant with two big boys. But, she had one girl. Sam'l decided to ask for his money back from the wiseman, but he was gone. Sam'l realized he'd been robbed. He beat me and I lost my eye, then he threw us out. So, I went to the Big House mob. They've been having me lay with men to pay my way, for our food and things."

"Sam'l doesn't sound very smart. Three times the wiseman conned him?" Kate said.

"But he's the head of the gang. What could I do?"

Kate shrugged.

"You're in much better condition now than you were when you got here, so now we need…" Castle began.

"Your lady is quite beautiful, sir, but if I close my eye and turn my head away, I assure you I can please you."

"That won't be necessary…"He was cut off again.

"Please, sir. Don't throw us out. At least keep Simone here. She doesn't need much and…"

This time Castle did the cutting off. "We have no intention of throwing you out. We have work for you here at the library."

Once more Castle explained the collapse of the Commonwealth and the rise of the Empire. "When the Empire arrives, which should be quite soon, they'll need the information in this library to properly evaluate the whole solar system. While we do have the central library computer and the droids, human minds are needed at one point or another. Can you read and write?"

The two exchanged glances. "Never, sir. All of the wisemen say it's not a woman's place to have learning."

"One, the wisemen don't seem to be able to do anything but take advantage of local gang leaders who are too gullible. Secondly, Kate here is from here and she learned to read and write and much else besides." Castle thought of something. "Computer? We do have a program to reach reading, writing, math and other things starting at a basic level?"

"Of course, sir." The computer replied. "That's how Miss Beckett learned. Although she's far beyond that level now."

Castle looked the two. Their clothes were more ragged than Kate's had been when she first arrived and they had less clothing than she did. "Computer, do we have clothing here, or a facility for making clothing. Marie and Simone need new clothes."

"We have some overalls, but they'll need to be altered, which the droids can do. And they'll need…"

"Undergarments." Kate interrupted. "And I think I'd better supervise that. Marie, Simone, come with me." As she left, she turned to Rick. "We should have dinner when we get back. Have the droids set the table, please?"

It took several hours, but the three women came back with new clothing. They all wore dark green overalls with a short sleeved white shirt and sandals. Rick noticed that Kate's outfit had been tailored to show her décolletage. He decided he liked her new look, although the form fitting ship suit had its points as well.

"We found something else as well." Kate said, pointing to a library droid carrying some packages. "There's food in a stasis chamber that wasn't in the library's data base."

"Someone's private stash, I bet." Castle grinned. "How much is there?"

"Enough for the four of us for three months. Longer if you leave before then."

Castle looked at the food packages. "Steak and potatoes from Albion. They don't exactly produce gourmet food, but it's good. Dinner, anyone?"

That night, in bed, after making love, Kate snuggled up next to Castle. "Do we really need them for the library like you said, and is the library really that important to this planet when the Empire gets here?"

He nodded. "Maybe they won't become brilliant librarians or anything else, but the Empire will have to work hard to get this planet and its people back on their feet. So, we have to start somewhere, even if they never do anything but shine the library droids. And they're a hell of a lot better off here than they were outside. We have to start showing people that the Empire really does mean peace and prosperity."

"As to how important this library is, it's very important. This was the central library for the whole planet. Since communications fell apart, we don't have contact with other libraries, so this may be it. All the information about the planet, and indeed the whole solar system's, resources is here."

She kissed him. "You're a good man."

"I only do it to impress you."

"Liar."

The next morning, they returned to where they'd left Rambler Three to work on the ships. Each night they'd return to the library. Among other things, they'd check on the progress of Marie and Simone.

"Please, sir." The library computer said. "They've been here for a matter of days. Please don't expect them to be doing post graduate level work."

"Sorry. I just want them to do well."

"They are, sir. They are."

They finished with Rick's ship and after another three days, they were ready to test Rambler Three. Rick tried to leave Kate behind this time since he wasn't sure about the replacement fusion pods he'd put in. He lost the argument.

He flew gently around the city at about five thousand meters and slowly began to try more and more things. When they landed, he was happy with the results. "We can only get it up to 41% so you can't go faster than light, but you can go just about anyplace you want. You'll go back in Al and I'll take Charlie. I'll tow the two grav rafts with our tools and the spare fusion pods. Tomorrow, we'll start teaching you to fly."

Kate was nervous the next morning. She would be sitting in the pilot's seat of Al with Rick sitting behind her in Rambler One.

"Don't worry about a thing." He said. "You'll have both me and Charlie looking after you, and I have a dual set of controls back here. You'll do fine."

Kate thought of a number of things to say in response to that, but didn't say them.

They began very simply. Kate would lift the ship off of the roof, rise a meter or two, then set it back down. After several hours, she took off, made a short tour around the roof and then landed. They repeated that over and over until Kate felt a bit relaxed.

"Okay, Kate. One last thing before we quit for the day. We'll fly over to the building to out left, circle it and come back and land here. Okay?"

"Rick, it's a long way down if something happens."

"Nothing will happen. I'm right here with you and so is Al. You'll be fine."

Kate was fine until she looked down. It was a long way down. A very long way down. She ceased moving forward and stopped in mid air.

"Kate, you need to keep going. Keep at it, lover. You can do it."

Kate sped up a bit and refused to look down. She went around the other building and headed back to the library and landed.

She popped the canopy and hopped out, followed by Rick. He hugged her. "That was amazing. You did better on your first day of pilot's training than I did. You're a natural."

"I think I need to go lie down." She said and walked unsteadily away.

But, over the next three weeks, Kate became more competent. She could weave between buildings, although not as fast a Castle could, hide behind one and then shoot out from the side and fly a dummy strafing run at some inoffensive pile of rubble. She flew high in the air and dove at full speed, crating sonic booms and letting everyone know that there was an aircraft in the air for the first time in a century or so.

Then one day, Rick used his controls to take them to twenty-five thousand meters, flipped the ship on to its back, spun it and then cut all the power.

"Okay, Kate. You know what to do. Do it."

Kate looked as the altimeter unwound at an alarming rate. Her fingers fumbled for the right controls to restart the engines. She failed twice before she got it right. Then she tried to get the ship right side up. Each time, the ship kept rolling as it spun. She finally righted the ship and then killed the spin. She felt like throwing up then and there.

"Very good. Better than most aerospace cadet on their first go around." Rick said. "But you can do better."

He took control again and the ship shot up and up. He stood the ship on its tail and cut the power. Kate reached for the controls and found they wouldn't respond to her.

"I still have control of the ship." Rick said as the ship began tumbling end over end. "We'll just wait a bit and then I'll cut the power again. Then we'll wait a minute and I'll give you control of the ship. Okay?"

"No, it's not okay!" She screamed. It did no good.

This time she failed to get the power back on line the first try, but succeeded on the second. She then managed to get the ship flying correctly. But for the next four hours, Rick put her through one simulated emergency after another. By the time she landed on the library roof, she was soaked with sweat.

"I need to take a shower." She said, running for the shower. She stripped and got in the shower, turning on the hot water and letting it flow over her. She gasped in great lungsful of air as her heart pounded in her chest. For some odd reason he remembered being at the ocean as a child. Her parents had allowed her to take off all of her clothing, not that she had on much, it being summer, and washing herself in the surf. _Was that really the last time she had washed her entire body before she met Rick?_ She asked herself.

She stayed in the shower until she was breathing normally and her heart no longer pounded madly. She heard Rick come into the bathroom,

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." She thought that she almost sounded okay.

"Need some help washing those hard to reach places?"

"Could you just hold me?"

To be continued.


	11. Chapter 11

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

He stepped into the shower and put his arms around her. "You did really well today. Really, really well. And you need to know how to react and react quickly when things turn to shit, as they often do. You won't be responsible for just yourself when I leave, you know. You have Marie and Simone to take care of. Come to think of it, I should probably take the long range comm array out of Rambler Three as well. As skinny as the two of them are, they should fit back there easily. Maybe we should plan on setting up a series of bolt holes for the three of you."

She was almost relaxed now. "We have no idea where any potential enemy might come from, or go to. Could we sling some food in some sort of container under Rambler Three?"

"Sure. I'll work on it."

"Do you want to help me dry off?" She whispered in his ear.

Just as Castle's grin spread across his face, Simone came in and said that she needed the bathroom right now. The two adults left with robes around them.

Castle took it easy on her for the next two days, concentrating on repeating the fundamentals of flying and one or two trips into low orbit. Then disaster struck.

"What's that noise." Kate muttered, just at dawn.

"Doesn't sound good. Sounds like…Oh shit! It sounds like firing. Heavy weapons."

Castle shot out of bed, followed quickly by Kate, running for the roof. He grabbed his helmet and put it on. "Al, give me a visual on whatever's going on." He could see bright flashes of light that could only have come from a directed energy weapon and heard the crack of a large rail gun firing. His visor lit up with a visual.

"What is that thing?" He asked.

"I believe it's a Mark XVII Model 7 war droid, called the Champion."

"Is it as big as it looks?"

"The Champion is 31 meters tall and weighs one hundred and ten metric tons, and is generally humanoid shaped. In answer to your next question, it mounts a 150 megawatt blast cannon at the end of each arm and carries a 15 centimeter rail gun on its left shoulder as its primary weapons. Secondary weapons are lighter blast cannons and rail guns. There are a large number of variations with the secondary weapons, the most common are…"

"I don't think we need to get that detailed, Al." His eye caught something. "Oh, shit. It just chased humans out of a wrecked building. He killed them all. Don't war droids have a program that prevents them from just killing anything that moves?"

"They do, but this planet has been abandoned for at least a century. In that time, its central processor could have been damaged or corrupted. Or it's possible its programming has been changed."

"How do we stop something like that?"

"The Champion was not successful due to its size. If you controlled local space, a warship as small as a corvette could destroy it from space, otherwise, a missile of sufficient size could destroy it. It was usually too large to be able to hide or camouflage itself."

"If we don't happen to have a handy warship or a nice big missile, how do we kill it?"

"We'll need a great deal of luck. And there's one more thing you should know."

"Tell me."

"It's headed more or less straight towards the library."

The visual in his visor faded. He saw Kate standing next to him, also wearing her helmet.

"You saw and heard that?"

Kate just nodded.

"Okay. I'm going to get my suit on and go out and try to stop that thing before it flattens the library."

"I'm going with you in my ship." Kate said.

"No, you aren't. Charlie, your orders are to keep Kate alive. And Marie and Simone." He turned back to Kate. "If you don't close the canopy you can cram the other two in, and you can outrun that thing easily."

"NO!" Kate screamed. "I am not letting you go out and fight that thing all by yourself."

"Charlie, you have your orders. Obey them."

In minutes he was in his ship and headed away, with Kate's pleas ringing in his ears. By staying close to the ground and hiding behind ruined buildings, he was able to get within a kilometer of the huge machine.

_It sure can't hide or camouflage itself. _He thought. _It's not just big, its weapon's signature gives away its position._

He checked the droid over. Up close, he could see that its left leg was damaged as it was dragging it as it tried to walk. In addition, what appeared to be sensor pods on the left side of its "head" were damaged. If he was lucky, he could attack from the left before being seen.

Be backed away and took a circuitous route through the trashed city to put himself on the left side of the droid. He popped out from behind a building and fired into the left side of the droid's "head". The head turned almost 180 degrees so that its sensors from the right side were pointed at Rick's ship. He saw the right blast cannon swing up to cover him and he shot away behind another building. As he did, part of the building exploded, rocking the ship, but doing no damage.

He could look through the smashed parts of two buildings and see the droid still heading towards the library. He was behind the droid and he could see the left knee joint was damaged. He slid around the first building and then went almost to the ground and crept around the second building. Putting the back of the knee squarely in his sights, he fired and kept firing.

The droid turned clumsily around and fired its railgun at him. The round went over him and spattered with rubble. He quickly got behind another building. Looking through blasted out windows, he could see the droid just standing there. He imagined that the droid was trying to decide whether to attack him, or continue to the library. A small part of him wondered why the droid wanted to attack the library.

The droid made its decision and headed for the library. It looked to Castle as if the left leg was weaker now.

Again, Castle circled around the slow moving droid to get ahead of it. He decided to attack the sensor pods on the machine's right this time. This time he hid behind a relatively tall building and waited for the droid to pass. When it did, he popped straight up and fired into the sensor pods. The droid whirled around faster than he'd thought it could and fired both blast cannons and its railgun at him. He was dropping behind the building when the building itself was hit, dropping tons of rubble on him. The ship was smashed to the ground and partially buried.

"Al! Can we get out of here?"

The ship began to rock back and forth, dislodging some of the rubble with each move.

"You'd better hurry. I can see the damned thing headed for us." Castle screamed.

"It'll take just a few minutes."

"We don't have…."

Castle's words were drowned out by the roar of another ship's blast cannons as Kate's ship bored in on the droid.

"Kate! What are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass. How are you doing?"

"Another minute, Miss Beckett, and we'll be out of here." Al replied.

The droid had headed away from Rick and the ship was able to pull itself clear.

"Kate, head for the library."

Once back at the library, he ran to Kate who was just exiting her ship. "Didn't I tell you to stay here?"

Kate nodded. "I believe you did. So?"

He yelled at her ship. "Charlie, I have you a direct order to protect Kate. Do you call letting her fly into combat with that thing protecting her?"

"Sir, you ordered me to protect Miss Beckett and Marie and Simone. But the only way I could do that would be to help Miss Beckett attack the war droid."

"That's absurd! How do you expect me to fall for that? Is your programming corrupted?"

"No, sir. If you'll allow me to explain."

"I can't wait." Castle said sarcastically.

"Miss Beckett told me that she would not get into the ship under any circumstances as long as you were in danger. She told me that if you were killed, I should take Marie and Simone to safety, but she would stay here and protect the library with the help of the war droids and security droids here. As I have no way to physically force her to enter the ship, she convinced me that the only way I could save her, and Marie and Simone, was to help her fight the war droid."

"That's idiotic. You could have…" He stopped for a second. "You could have ordered one of the security droids to physically put her in the ship."

Kate smiled. "The droids here take orders from me, or you, if you're here. There's no way Charlie could have given them and order that I couldn't countermand."

"Then Charlie should have…." Castle stopped. He had no idea what Charlie could have done if Kate was determined to fight to protect the library.

"I have some news." Al broke in. "It appears that the Champion has fallen into some sort of underground tunnel."

"Is it destroyed?" Castle hoped it was.

"No. It fell to about its hips, but it is having trouble getting out. Its bad leg hinders it."

"Kate, I want you to stay here and…"

"No. Not a chance. You give Charlie an order to let me fight with you until the Champion is destroyed, or I stay right here, defending the library."

"Kate, you are the most…"

"Yes, I am. "She interrupted. "Now give the order. We haven't got all day."

Castle had no choice. He gave the order.

The library computer had plotted a course for them that would bring them behind the Champion. They buzzed between wrecked buildings and huge piles of rubble and slowly came around one shattered building to see the Champion stuck in a hole, waist deep.

"Look." Rick said. "He's got his left knee out of the hole, but he can't get enough leverage to pull himself out. We'll go for the left knee. Got it?"

"Got it." Kate replied.

They shot out from behind the building and fired into the left knee joint. Castle could see the armor around the joint turning molten. The damned knee would have to collapse soon. It had to.

The Champion's left blast cannon moved back to take a shot at them.

"Move to the right. It can't move its left arm that far." Castle screamed.

They shot to the right and continued firing into the left knee. Then with a whine of gears and a roar of the engine, with rubble flying everywhere, the ward droid levered itself out of the hole. Castle could see that the knee joint was wobbling from one side to the other as the droid walked. It got perhaps twenty steps before a loud metallic crack announced the final destruction of the knee. The droid fell forward, catching itself on its arms.

Castle breathed a sigh of relief. "Damn. I'm glad that's over."

"Not so fast, Castle." Kate said. "It's starting to drag itself towards the library on its hands and knees, or what's left of the knees. And it can still shoot."

Castle thought for a moment and then smiled. "Back to the library. I have a cunning plan."

To be continued.


	12. Chapter 12

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

Back at the library, Castle jumped out and ran into the makeshift hangar. "Kate, back Rambler Three in here."

Kate did so and the got out. "What's you plan?"

"I rigged a magnetic sling to Rambler Three so you could take supplies with you if you had to leave with Marie and Simone."

"I am _not_ going anywhere." Kate announced loudly.

"Yes, you are. You're going to take Rambler One and distract the damned wardroid. You don't have to get close enough to do real damage, or even hit it, just keep it focused on you."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to put a spare fusion pod in the sling, then sneak up behind the droid and drop it as close as I can to the droid. Then I'll back off and fire at the pod. When the pod breaches, it may not destroy the droid, but it should do a lot of damage. I need you to be a little to one side of the droid, not head on or you might hit me. Shoot from over by the blue building over there. Okay?"

Kate helped him rig the fusion pod and then took off to harass the wounded droid. As long as it was pulling itself along, it couldn't fire its blast cannon. She got herself in position and waited for Castle to get in position.

"Kate, are you ready?"

"Ready."

"Start firing. I'm going to wait a little bit and then attack once the droid is fixated on you. Any time you're ready, go."

Kate shot up above the building and shot. The droid ignored her and kept dragging itself along. She popped out on the left side of the building and fired into the droid's head. This time the droid rose up and fired, but Kate was behind the building by the time it did.

Hoping that this would work, Castle shot out from behind a building behind the war droid and headed straight for it. The droid was still concentrating on Kate as Rick zoomed past. He dropped the fusion pod and saw it hit the back of the droid, and bounce off. It landed just behind the droid. He backed off to what he thought was a safe distance and fired when he saw the massive droid trying to pull itself away.

The blast momentarily whited out his visor and when it cleared, all he could see was dust. Thermal imaging showed the droid hadn't been destroyed. However, its right arm was bent at an awkward angle. The arm jerked back and forth slightly as if the droid was trying to get it in position to fire at Rick, but it wasn't moving towards him.

Since the weapons on the left side couldn't move far enough to shoot to the right, Castle moved up to the right and started shooting at the back of the droid. The armor on the torso was the thickest, but that was because it protected the droid's fusion pod and the computer. If he could destroy either one, the battle would be over.

More fire was being directed to the back of the droid.

"You're supposed to stay by the blue building." He yelled.

"Did you mean for me to stay there forever?" Kate asked sweetly. "Besides, he can't shoot at us as long as we stay on this side, so we're…"

Her conversation was cut off by a huge blast that threw them back. The war droid was destroyed.

"Kate! Are you all right?"

"Um, yes. All in one piece and still in the air. You?"

"Same. Al, any damage to the ship?"

"Nothing that would keep us from getting back to the library. The DRDs should be able to make the necessary repairs in a few hours. Charlie has advised me that Rambler Three is in slightly better shape than Rambler One. Repairs should take less than an hour."

When they landed at the library, Kate ran to Rick and threw her arms around him. "Are you mad at me?"

"Yes. And very proud, and still worried about you, and a lot of things. Let's go inside."

When they got to the librarian's office, the library computer had some news for them. "Miss Marie and Miss Simone want to read for you. Would just before dinner be appropriate?"

"We haven't eaten yet today, but I guess that'd be okay." Castle said, looking at Kate, who was nodding.

The two came in and Marie began to read. It was a children's story about a cat that got out of its house and wandered about the city having adventures, nothing too exciting, before finding its way back home.

Castle and Beckett applauded and both Marie and Simone beamed with pride and pleasure.

Simone read a book about a dog who went to the country with his family and met many different other animals before going home. All three applauded and Simone blushed.

"That reminds me, library, can we make an artificial eye for Marie?"

"We could make a cosmetic prosthesis, but not one that would restore her sight. However, we lack a medical droid to implant it and your medical droid, or med sack, as you refer to it is also incapable of doing the job."

"Okay, Marie, when the Empire gets here, or I get us all back to the Empire, we can get a new eye grown and implanted for you. It'll be as good as new."

Both Marie and Simone began crying. "You really can do that?" Simone asked.

Rick held out his left hand. "They regrew my hand after I got it shot off as an infantryman. An eye is no harder." He heard his stomach grumble. "Now, how about dinner?"

That night, in bed, Castle told Kate what they needed to do next. "We have to get food for you and Marie and Simone."

"No problem. I can hunt to supplement the food we have."

"I don't want you doing anything dangerous. When do the traders from those off shore islands show up?"

"Perhaps in another week. Why? I was never able to buy more than a month or two worth of food. They don't have all that much."

"But, I bet they'd find some if we had something they really wanted. What can you tell me about the traders?"

"They're a religious group. I don't know much about the religion, but the leaders are in two groups. One is called the Angels. The usual leader of the traders is called Angel Carson. The other group isn't as powerful, they're called Engineers. There are usually different Engineers at each trade mission."

The next day they flew to the old shipyard where Garwal and his people lived. When they landed, the plant people gathered around them.

"Hi, is Garwal here?"

"No, he's out with the security droid collecting soil." Said one of the green people. "But I'm Tifan. Can I help you?"

"We need a few things from the old shipyard. Can you open the door for us and let us take some things?"

"Certainly. There's nothing in there that we need, after all."

They flew into the building and spent several hours loading things into the magnetic slings that had now been rigged on both ships. Then they left.

Eight days later, the library computer informed them that a DRD had seen ships landing at the trade site. Rick and Kate got into their ships and headed off to trade.

Very carefully, they approached the beach where the sailing ships had landed. Castle wanted to make sure that the traders knew they were friendly. Everyone on the beach ran for cover initially, but as the two ships slowly alit on the ground, a few brave souls came towards them. Both Rick and Kate took off their helmets and walked towards the traders.

"You're Katie Beckett. You've been here before. Are you now with those flying things?"

"Yes, Angel Carson, and hello Engineer Doyle. How are all of you today? And may I introduce Lieutenant Richard Castle of the Imperial Terran Navy."

As Castle went about explain who he was, how he'd gotten here and what had happened since the collapse of the Commonwealth, he closely examined the traders. Angel Carson was tall, thin and wore a long, white robe that matched his long white heard and hair. He reminded Castle of pictures he'd seen of a religious prophet. Engineer Doyle was younger and much stockier, with a dark hair and beard, which matched his dark robe. Castle thought that his bulk was muscle rather than fat.

When Castle was done, Carson nodded solemnly. "You and Katie shot up the Head Choppers and destroyed that gigantic metal thing?"

Castle nodded. "We were threatened. As were others."

"And how will this Empire treat my flock?"

Castle explained that the Empire allowed its member planets a great deal of autonomy in all things, including religion.

"I assume you came to trade with us. What do you have to trade?"

"I brought a fusion pod, of which we have several."

Both Angel Carson and Engineer Doyle advanced to look at the pod.

"We are a simple people with little knowledge of machinery. We may be able to…"

Angel Carson was interrupted by Engineer Doyle who had knelt under this ship carrying the fusion pod. "Thank you, Oh, Lord, for this gift." He cried out. "With this we can power our fishing boat. We can get five times as much fish now. Or we could use it to power up our farm equipment, our tractors, the mowers, the threshers or we could use it to power the irrigation pumps…"

"Thank you for pointing that out to us, Engineer Doyle." Angel Carson yelled. "Now, if we can continue, Lieutenant Castle?"

Castle managed to keep from laughing. "I'll make it easy on you. You get this fusion pod in exchange for four months of food for four people. After four months, we'll give you another pod for another four months of food."

Angel Carson was about to say something when Engineer Doyle broke in. "That's a bargain, Angel Carson. We can triple our food output with just one of these. With two or three….I can't even imagine what we can do. Why we might be able…"

"Enough, Engineer Doyle." He turned to Castle. "We'll accept your offer. We don't have four months of food for four people with us, however."

"That's all right. You can take the pod back with you. Just remember we can always come and repossess it."

"Angel Carson?" Another trader said. "Brother William's boat is headed this way and from the way he's waving, something is wrong."

Something was indeed wrong. Brother William jumped out of the boat before it had hit the beach and ran to Angel Carson. "Angel Carson. It's the Head Choppers. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Headed this way in boats. You can just see the tips of their masts on the horizon now."

"You seem to have caused us a problem, Lieutenant Castle. What now?" Angel Carson said.

Castle shook his head. "Hold my beer."

"You don't have any beer."

"It's an old Earth expression." He said over his shoulder as he headed for his ship. "Kate, you stay here, I won't be long."

Castle's ship shot into the air and levelled off at two thousand meters. He could see the fleet of ships headed for land.

"Al, let's take a closer look at those ships. What do you make of them?"

"They appear to be either wind powered or human powered. The largest of them is a three-masted sailing ship and the smallest are dugout canoes carrying perhaps two dozen people. I count two hundred and sixteen ships in all."

"Are we sure they're all Head Choppers?"

His answer was some close-up videos of human heads festooning the ships.

To be continued.


	13. Chapter 13

The Pilot

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the Planet of Infinite Stana Katics. (Sorry, this story is not set there.) Rating: T, maybe. A little bit. Not much. Time: A future AU.

Castle sighed. "We'll light up the largest ship first. I imagine the leaders of this expedition are on it. Then we'll attack the other ships. I'd like to not be able to kill that many people, but as violent as the Head Choppers are, I think it's best. Let's get started."

The first blast from his blast cannons set fire to the largest ship. The fire spread so rapidly there was no need for a second blast. Castle worked his way from the larger ships to the smaller ones and as he did, he saw that people were jumping overboard.

"Do you think they'll make it to land?" He asked Al.

"No, sir. The tide is going out and there's an ocean current that will sweep them to the south and away from land. I suppose some very strong swimmers might make it to land, but if they're identified as Head Choppers, they'll be killed."

"Okay, let's destroy the boats so they can't come back and get aboard again."

After an hour Castle scanned the ocean. There was some debris floating on the water that had survivors clinging to it, but they were headed away from the land.

They went back.

When he landed, Kate ran to him. "Are you all right?"

He nodded. "Al told me that we were shot at, but we were too high for them to hit us. I didn't get a scratch. How's the trade negotiations going?"

"They have about a week's worth of food with them and we have a net to put it in and attach it to either ship. They'll have more food in four days. We can pick it up here. In two weeks, we should have four months' supply of food." She lowered her voice. "Why did you ask for a supply for four people. You're leaving soon, aren't you?"

"I don't want them to know when I'm going or how long I'll be gone. If everyone thinks there's a nasty Imperial Head Chopper Killer around, they'll be more polite."

"You aren't nasty." She whispered.

"Wait until I get you in bed tonight and you'll see how nasty I can be."

She giggled.

In two weeks the last of the food was delivered. They had enough pods to trade for sixteen months of food. Castle didn't think it would take that long, but if she had to, Kate could go to the shipyard and try to find more goods that could be traded for food.

Kate snuggled against Rick on his last night. "Do you really have to leave?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"Do you want to live here forever with Head Choppers and every type of bandit, slaver and raider running loose on the planet?"

"No."

"Then I have to leave and I have to come back."

The next morning Kate, Marie and Simone watched as Rick prepped his ship for flight. All four cried when Rick gave each one of them one more hug and then headed off into space.

"You'd better come back, Rick!" Kate shouted at the retreating ship as it disappeared from sight.

**Eleven Months and Three Days Later **

"Pilots man your planes. Repeat! Pilots man your planes." The traditional order bounced off the squadron ready room's walls. Rick grabbed his gear, checked his space suit one last time and headed out of the ready room with his squadron mates.

In the corridor leading to the spacecraft his wing commander was waiting for him. "Lieutenant Castle, do you think your girlfriend will be waiting for you?"

"She'll be there, sir. No doubt about it."

"Just to be sure everything's okay, you'll have a division of ships orbiting over the library. You know that, right?"

"Yes, sir. I do."

"Then get going."

Castle dove through the atmosphere with four other ships closely behind him. Spotting the city ahead of him, he began to bleed off speed and altitude. Checking his sensors, he saw that many other fighters were orbiting over the city, alert to any danger to the landing craft. He circled the library once and then landed.

Standing on the roof was a figure in a space suit, flanked by a war droid and a security droid. He popped open the canopy and dropped to the roof, taking off his helmet.

"Castle!" Kate shouted as she tore off her helmet and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him. She broke the kiss and began dragging him to the stairway. "We're going to bed right now."

"Sorry, you have company coming besides me. Is everything okay here? Any problems?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle. What company?"

"It's a surprise." He hit the mic's transmit button. "All clear down here. You are cleared to land."

A large landing craft set down on the library roof. As soon as it did, doors opened and a dozen battle armored troops ran out and took up defensive positions. They were followed by an older woman wearing a blue uniform. Kate wondered who she was. She looked important and had a bit of grey in her otherwise red hair.

"Katherine Beckett, may I present Rear Admiral Alexis Harper, the commander of Force H-6, and the new military governor of your world."

"Glad to meet you, Miss Beckett. Lieutenant Castle has told us all about you. And, you'll be glad to know that you'll have some help with the library. Ensign Goadar has been with Castle almost constantly for the last three months. She's learned a lot from him."

At the word "she", jealousy burst into Kate's mind. There was no way another woman was going to get anywhere near Castle. It was out of the question.

Admiral Harper turned towards the landing craft. "Ensign Goadar, where are you?"

"Coming, ma'am."

Kate saw that Ensign Goadar was very female. In fact, she had three pairs of breasts under her blue coverall. She was a good head taller than Rick and seemed to be covered in short, brown fur. Her face was round with neither an external nose or ears, but with two large fangs jutting out from her mouth.

"Miss Beckett, I am _so_ glad to meet you at last. I never, ever _thought_ that my first assignment as a librarian would so _exciting_. I am _so_ anxious to start."

Kate looked to the sky. "What are all the other ships doing?"

"Most of them are transports for the 5th Sikh Division, which will be the basic garrison of Kate's World." The admiral answered. "They'll have additional armor, artillery and aerospace assets attached along with military police and a regiment of the SAS."

"The SAS is the Special Administrative Services. "Rick explained. "They're composed of doctors, teachers, agricultural experts, and such, in short everything needed to get this world on it's feet."

"Will there be much fighting?" Kate asked.

"The troops are mainly armed with sonic stunners for now, but I understand some people here will want to fight." The admiral said.

"Why do you call it Kate's World?"

The admiral grinned. "We have no record of this planet at all and Lieutenant Castle neglected to ask you what its name is. He kept calling it Kate's World and the name stuck. Now, shall we go see your library?"

Castle was surprised when they walked into the top floor of the library. When he had left, most of the trash had been cleaned out, but the place was still a mess. To one side of the long rows of computer terminals stood four people, Marie, Simone and two others.

"Admiral, may I introduce my assistants? This is Marie and her daughter, Simone and this is Mr. Kim and his granddaughter Jian."

The admiral shook each of their hands, but stopped when she got to Marie. "We'll have to see about growing you a new eye."

Marie said nothing, but began to cry.

"Mr. Kim and his granddaughter are fairly new here, arriving only five months ago. Quite frankly most people are terrified of the library."

"Lieutenant Castle has shown me photos of what the library looked like. What you've done here is amazing. Is the rest as well done?"

"No, Admiral. We haven't had the time or resources. However, we have done a few things. I believe there are people still alive on the habitable moon Xenos which orbits the seventh planet. And I've contacted the AI that controls the mining operation on the moons of Taklamakan. That's the eighth planet out. They have automated factories that enable them to manufacture and repair anything they need to keep mining." Kate handed the admiral a tablet. "This is an inventory of what they've amassed in the last century or so."

The admiral whistled. "This should pay for the rehabilitation of the whole solar system for many years to come. Very well done. Oh, by the way, this is for you." She handed Kate a small book.

"What is it?"

"You're a Citizen of the Empire now, Miss Beckett. The first one on this planet. Oh, and one other thing. Lieutenant Castle asked to assist you as an assistant librarian, but you have Ensign Goadar for that and Castle has no qualifications as a librarian anyway."

Kate was about to protest, but the admiral continued.

"He will be the liaison between the library and my command, instead. Do you have someplace for him to stay?"

Kate smiled. "I certainly do."

**Eleven Months and Four Days Later **

The Imperial was the finest hotel on the planet of Skye and lived up to its reputation as far as Rick Castle was concerned. In spite of sharing the suite with Kate, he knocked on the door. She opened the door at once. Her hair was longer and curlier, plus she had learned to use makeup. Her dress was a soft blue that stopped just above her knees and plunged down between her breasts.

"You don't need to knock, Rick. This is your room."

He smiled and shook his head. "This is _our_ room. It's a suite actually."

"Whatever. You don't need to knock."

"Are you ready for your twenty-seventh and final birthday party?"

Kate giggled. "My last one? Oh, I suppose I am. Where are we going?"

"I thought we'd stay here and order room service, but first I have to give you your present." He dropped to one knee and pulled a small box out of his pocket. He opened it to show that a ring was inside. "Katherine Houghton Beckett, will you marry me?"

Kate couldn't speak for a moment. "Yes." She said weakly. Then more loudly. "Yes, yes, yes."

The End

**Author's note: Next up is Good Golly, Miss Molly, a crossover story mixing the characters of Castle with those of the Henson Company's Farscape. I am working on sequels to both Deadly Planet and to the continuing adventures of Lord and Lady Castle in Renaissance Italy, and elsewhere. However, I have a good idea for another military sci fi story featuring, who else, Caskett. I may write that after Good Golly, Miss Molly. **


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